realia in literary translation
TRANSCRIPT
Realia in Literary Translation
A quantitative and qualitative study of Russian realia in Norwegian and English translations
Alla Kharina
Ph.D. Dissertation
Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages
Faculty of Humanities
University of Oslo
2018
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Oslo for
financing my research project as well as the many academic events I had the opportunity to
participate in during my years as a Ph.D. candidate.
I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor Atle Grønn, for offering me his support and
giving helpful comments throughout the writing process. His unfailing optimism helped me
tremendously. I owe many thanks to my co-supervisor, Professor Ingunn Lunde of the
University of Bergen for her thorough readings and constructive criticism.
My sincere thanks go to Professor Per Ambrosiani of the University of Umeå for reading parts
of the manuscript and sharing his thoughts on it, as well as for coming to Oslo to participate in
the “mock” defense of my thesis as my opponent.
I must also thank Jakob Lothe, the head of the Ph.D. program at ILOS, and Tina Skouen, who
recently replaced him in this role, for organizing thesis seminars and social events at ILOS and
having occasional motivational talks with me.
I am grateful to all my colleagues at ILOS and other institutes who in one way or another offered
their support. I would like to thank the participants of the thesis seminars organized by ILOS
and ILN for reading my papers and giving insightful comments; the participants of the
Translation Seminar at ILOS for interesting discussions and commenting on my presentation;
and the participants of the international conferences in Tbilisi, Stockholm and Trondheim I
spoke at for providing valuable feedback on my work.
I must not forget to thank the amazing lecturers at the Department of Philology of Novosibirsk
State Technical University who shared their knowledge with me between 1999 and 2005 and
increased my interest in languages and literature.
Finally, my very special thanks go to my family: my mom Liudmila and my sister Rita who
always encouraged me and believed in my ability to complete this project when I had my doubts;
to my partner Marius who patiently read and commented on the major part of this manuscript
and, lastly, to my little son Leo for becoming a challenging yet wonderful interruption in my
work as a Ph.D. candidate.
Alla Kharina
Oslo, May 2018
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ABBREVIATIONS DTS — Descriptive Translation Studies
EN — English
NO — Norwegian
RU — Russian
SC — source culture
SL — source language
ST — source text
TC — target culture
TL — target language
TT — target text
BA — Boris Akunin, Koronatsiia, ili poslednii iz romanov
LT — Leonid Tsypkin, Leto v Badene
LUM — Liudmila Ulitskaia, Medeia i ee deti
LUS — Liudmila Ulitskaia, Sonechka
MB — Mikhail Bulgakov, Rokovye iaitsa
MS — Mikhail Shishkin, Venerin volos
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CONTENTS
1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Goals and object of the study ........................................................................................... 1 1.2 Critical Descriptive Translation Studies ......................................................................... 2 1.3 Domestication and foreignization in translation ............................................................. 4 1.4 Research questions ........................................................................................................... 7 1.5 Hypotheses based on the Polysystem Theory .................................................................. 9 1.6 Outline of the dissertation.............................................................................................. 10
2 Theoretical Issues............................................................................................................. 12 2.1 Issues of translatability ......................................................................................................... 12 2.2 Equivalence in translation .................................................................................................... 17 2.3 Translation Strategies and Translation Procedures/Shifts .................................................. 24 2.4 Polysystem Theory, Translation Norms and Translation Regularities ............................... 34
3 Realia ............................................................................................................................... 41
3.1 Culture-specific elements as a translation problem ............................................................. 41 3.2 The concept of realia............................................................................................................. 44 3.4 Realia as a culturally, historically and textually dynamic category .................................... 48 3.5 Realia as terminological lexis ............................................................................................... 49 3.6 My definition of realia .......................................................................................................... 51 3.7 The scope of realia ................................................................................................................ 52 3.8 Word classes covered by realia............................................................................................. 54 3.9 Classification of realia .......................................................................................................... 57
3.9.1 Local typology .............................................................................................................................. 58 3.9.2 Temporal typology ........................................................................................................................ 64 3.9.3 Thematic typology ........................................................................................................................ 70
3.9.3.1 Geographic realia ................................................................................................................... 71 3.9.3.2 Ethnographic realia ................................................................................................................ 71 3.9.3.3 Socio-political realia .............................................................................................................. 75
3.10 Realia in literary translation .............................................................................................. 78
4 Material ............................................................................................................................ 82 4.1 Selection criteria for source texts and target texts ............................................................... 82
4.1.1 Fictional texts................................................................................................................................ 82 4.1.2 Norwegian and English target texts ................................................................................................ 82 4.1.3 Two Norwegian translators ............................................................................................................ 83 4.1.4 Recent translations ........................................................................................................................ 83 4.1.5 Texts found in the RuN corpus ...................................................................................................... 84
4.2 Source texts and target texts selected for this study ............................................................ 84 4.3 Summary of the Russian source texts .................................................................................. 86
4.3.1 Koronatsiia, ili poslednii iz romanov by Boris Akunin ................................................................... 86 4.3.2 Rokovye iaitsa by Mikhail Bulgakov.............................................................................................. 86
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4.3.3 Leto v Badene by Leonid Tsypkin .................................................................................................. 87 4.3.4 Venerin volos by Mikhail Shishkin ................................................................................................ 87 4.3.5 Sonechka by Liudmila Ulitskaia .................................................................................................... 88 4.3.6 Medeia i ee deti by Liudmila Ulitskaia ........................................................................................... 88
5 Methodology ..................................................................................................................... 89 5.1 Unit of comparative analysis ................................................................................................ 89 5.2 Retrieval of data ................................................................................................................... 91 5.3 Classification of translation shifts ........................................................................................ 97
5.3.1 Universal typologies and the notion of invariance .......................................................................... 97 5.3.2 Specialized typologies of translation shifts ................................................................................... 103 5.3.2 My typology of translation procedures for rendering realia ........................................................... 105
5.3.2.1 Retention ............................................................................................................................. 107 5.3.2.2 Retention with Extratextual Specification ............................................................................. 110 5.3.2.3 Retention with Intratextual Short Specification ..................................................................... 112 5.3.2.4 Retention with Extratextual Detailed Specification ............................................................... 113 5.3.2.5 Loan Translation .................................................................................................................. 116 5.3.2.6 Loan Translation with Extratextual Specification .................................................................. 119 5.3.2.7 Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification ................................................................... 120 5.3.2.8 Explicitation by an Extended Paraphrase .............................................................................. 121 5.3.2.9 Explicitation by a Short Paraphrase ...................................................................................... 124 5.3.2.10 Explicitation by a Hypernym .............................................................................................. 126 5.3.2.11 *Stylistic Adaptation .......................................................................................................... 128 5.3.2.12 Functional Substitution ...................................................................................................... 129 5.3.2.13 Contextual Substitution ...................................................................................................... 132 5.3.2.14 Omission ........................................................................................................................... 134
5.4 Qualitative and quantitative approaches to realia ............................................................. 135 5.4.1 Qualitative methods in the present study ...................................................................................... 136 5.4.2 Quantitative methods in the present study .................................................................................... 137 5.4.3 Interpretation of the Quantitative Findings ................................................................................... 141
6 Comparative Qualitative Analysis of the Coupled Pairs ................................................. 142
6.1 Translation of geographic realia ........................................................................................ 142 6.1.1 Realia denoting objects of physical geography ............................................................................. 142 6.1.2 Realia denoting geographical objects associated with human activity ........................................... 142 6.1.3 Realia denoting endemic species.................................................................................................. 143 6.1.4 Translation procedures for rendering geographic realia — Summary ............................................ 144
6.2 Translation of ethnographic realia ..................................................................................... 145 6.2.1 Realia describing food ................................................................................................................. 145 6.2.2 Realia denoting clothing .............................................................................................................. 154 6.2.3 Realia denoting housing .............................................................................................................. 163 6.2.4 Realia denoting household items.................................................................................................. 168 6.2.5 Realia related to transportation .................................................................................................... 171 6.2.6 Realia denoting weapons ............................................................................................................. 175 6.2.7 Realia related to work.................................................................................................................. 177 6.2.8 Realia denoting arts and crafts ..................................................................................................... 181 6.2.9 Realia related to folklore and mythology...................................................................................... 184 6.2.10 Realia denoting customs, celebrations, games ............................................................................ 189 6.2.11 Realia related to religion ............................................................................................................ 194 6.2.12 Realia denoting ethnic groups .................................................................................................... 199 6.2.13 Realia describing language ........................................................................................................ 204 6.2.14 Realia denoting money .............................................................................................................. 207 6.2.15 Realia denoting units of measurement ........................................................................................ 214 6.2.16 Translation procedures for rendering ethnographic realia — Summary ....................................... 222
6.3 Translation of socio-political realia .................................................................................... 223 6.3.1 Realia denoting administrative divisions ...................................................................................... 223 6.3.2 Realia denoting social and political phenomena ........................................................................... 228
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6.3.3 Realia denoting institutions ......................................................................................................... 233 6.3.4 Realia related to education ........................................................................................................... 239 6.3.5 Realia denoting social classes ...................................................................................................... 245 6.3.6 Realia denoting ranks, titles, forms of address .............................................................................. 249 6.3.7 Realia denoting military units and personnel ................................................................................ 254 6.3.8 Realia denoting awards and official documents ............................................................................ 259 6.3.9 Translation of socio-political realia — Summary ......................................................................... 262
7 Comparative Quantitative Analysis of the Coupled Pairs ............................................... 264
7.1 Translation strategies in the English and Norwegian translations .................................... 264 7.2 Translation regularities in the Norwegian and English translations................................. 277 7.3 Translation regularities in the Norwegian translations by Dagfinn Foldøy and Marit Bjerkeng ................................................................................................................................... 279
8 Conclusions .................................................................................................................... 283
8.1 Main findings ...................................................................................................................... 283 8.2 Suggestions for future research .......................................................................................... 287
References ......................................................................................................................... 288
Index ................................................................................................................................. 297
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1 Introduction
1.1 Goals and object of the study The main goal of this thesis is to investigate how contemporary Norwegian and English
translators of Russian fiction deal with culture-bound vocabulary — realia. Realia are defined
in my study as a set of lexical items of the source language (SL) which denote unique objects
and phenomena characteristic of the SL community and which have no direct lexical
counterparts in the target language (TL). This lexis (e.g. дача, окрошка, верста, НКВД) often
presents a significant challenge in translation, and various solutions have been developed by
translators to bridge lexical gaps. Translation scholars, in turn, seek to scrutinize and classify
these solutions in a variety of texts and genres (Aixela 1996, Nedergaard-Larsen 1993, Pedersen
2011, Vinogradov 1978, Vlakhov and Florin 1970, 1980, 1986/2012, etc.). However, very few
attempts have been made to analyze this sort of data quantitatively (see Pedersen 2011, van
Poucke 2012).
The choice of only one translation aspect for investigation is motivated by a desire to
remain as unbiased as possible in my comparative analysis. Instead of examining various
translation phenomena on a selective basis, I focus on one lexical category and study it non-
selectively in several target texts to reveal patterns of translation. The reason I specifically chose
realia as the object of my investigation is because this lexis represents the kind of salient
translation problem that calls for a high level of awareness in the translation process and makes
a translator actively seek a translation solution. Moreover, the approach to realia adopted by a
specific translator can be indicative of his/her general attitude to the issues of domestication
and foreignization — a conceptual dichotomy that has enjoyed increasing interest in the last
few years in translation studies (see Section 1.3).
In this thesis, the notions of domestication and foreignization introduced by Lawrence
Venuti (1995, 1998) are conceptualized as the two poles of a continuum. Various translation
solutions for realia, or shifts, observed in target texts are analyzed on the micro-level and placed
at different points of this continuum. Piet van Poucke notes, that precisely because
domestication and foreignization form a continuum and all translation solutions have
domesticating and foreignizing aspects, scholars typically avoid studying these notions
quantitatively (van Poucke 2012: 139). In my work, I try to understand how we can explore
domesticating and foreignizing tendencies not merely based on carefully selected examples,
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but also in a more objective way. The present study is thus intended to be both qualitative and
quantitative: an analysis of different types of realia and shifts is followed by statistical
calculations. I have developed and tested a 13-point scale which is used as a quantitative model
to determine the degree of domestication of realia in the selected texts. By making an inventory
of translation solutions, classifying and analyzing them combined, I attempt to establish what
the translator’s overall strategy was within a single text — as opposed to other translators’
strategies. Further, by performing a comparative analysis of several target texts, I seek to reach
a higher level of generalization — to identify translation regularities. An attempt is made to
establish whether the Norwegian and English translations occupy different places on the
domestication/foreignization continuum.
The present study is product-oriented, according to James S. Holmes’s “map” of
translation studies (Holmes 1988/2004). This means that it involves an empirical investigation
of the products of translation (target texts and paratexts) with little regard to the cognitive
aspects of translation process. Six Russian novels and their recent translations into Norwegian
and English have been selected for investigation. Data have been mainly retrieved from the
Russian–Norwegian–English parallel corpus developed at the University of Oslo. The study is
being performed within the descriptive paradigm and is meant to serve as a contribution to the
field of Critical Descriptive Translation Studies (see Section 1.2). It aspires to be a small step
towards the ultimate goal of Descriptive Translation Studies as it was viewed by Holmes: “one
of the eventual goals of product-oriented DTS might possibly be a general history of
translations — however ambitious such a goal may sound at this time”. At the same time, my
study of realia has a more immediate tangible purpose of raising the translators’ awareness of
their choices and, with a range of concrete examples, demonstrates what a target text may lose
or gain with the use of different translation procedures.
1.2 Critical Descriptive Translation Studies
Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS) emerged in the 1970–1980s as an alternative to the
traditional prescriptivist approach to translation, in which translators and translation scholars
tried to identify the “right” and “wrong” ways of translating and defended their preferred way.
In his influential article “The Name and Nature of Translation Studies” (1972/2004), James S.
Holmes establishes Translation Studies as an independent academic discipline and proposes to
distinguish between its “pure” and “applied” branches. According to Holmes, whereas the
“applied” branch deals with translation training and criticism and thus may involve prescriptive
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writing, the “pure” branch should be concerned with description of translational phenomena
and make attempts to explain and predict such phenomena (Holmes 1972/2004: 184–190). Theo
Hermans explains this as follows: “In rejecting a prescriptive, or normative, approach to
translation, the descriptivists want to conduct research for its own sake and not in order to distil
from it practical advice or guidelines for good translating (...)” (Hermans 1999: 35).
Gideon Toury (1980, 1995, 2012), drawing on Holmes’s view and Even-Zohar’s
Polysystem Theory (1979), developed a three-stage methodology for studying translational
phenomena. As Toury intentionally avoids a universal definition of translation and operates
instead with the notion of “assumed translation”, the first step in translation research is
described as identifying texts that are assumed to be translations in the target culture and
studying them as facts of that target culture. The next stage starts with establishing a
corresponding source of an assumed translation. Further, it involves mapping target text (TT)
segments onto source text (ST) segments, i.e. identifying “coupled pairs” as units of
comparative analysis. The goal of this comparative analysis is to establish target–source
relations for individual coupled pairs. The final, third stage of research, according to Toury,
should be the formulation of tentative generalizations which aim at reconstructing the
translation process for the given pair of ST and TT. (Toury 2012: 31–33). For Toury, the
ultimate goal of DTS is to accumulate a large number of studies of translation from different
genres, epochs and cultures in order to eventually formulate translation norms and still more
universal translation laws.
DTS has been criticized for adopting methods from natural sciences without making
allowance for the fact that translation does not lend itself well to an objective examination.
Translation scholar Anthony Pym points out that in empirical research “there is always some
subjective agenda at stake” (Pym 2014b: 49). Similarly, Hermans (1999) and Brownlie (2011)
admit that interpretation and subjective judgements are an integral part of descriptions.
Hermans assumes that “the polemical context in which the descriptive paradigm came into
being partially explains the over-emphasis on dispassionate investigation” and insists that there
are many reasons for remaining skeptical of “descriptive detachment and objectivity” (Hermans
1999: 36). One of the reasons he mentions is that all linguistic utterances, including descriptions,
imply modal aspects and thus cannot be neutral by definition (ibid). Brownlie refers to
Hermans’s own approach as descriptive only to the extent that, contrary to prescriptivism, it
does not seek to influence the translation practice; instead, it seeks to observe and interpret what
happens in translation practice and discourse on translation. She claims: “Like DTS, it is
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descriptive, but unlike DTS it is self-reflexive and self-critical” (Brownlie 2011: 79) and
proposes a new term for this development in DTS — “Critical Descriptive Translation Studies”.
The present study can be said to be carried out within this paradigm. On the one hand,
in line with DTS it attempts to observe and compare translational phenomena on a non-selective
basis and find patterns in translator’s choices. On the other hand, it fully recognizes the filters
through which translation data are selected and analyzed. The very choice of translation
problem for our study, realia, as well as the choice of material and methods have some
subjective aspects. Furthermore, the qualitative part of my research involves an interpretive
analysis, and it remains descriptive only in the sense that I try not to defend any of the solutions
or dismiss others as inappropriate.
1.3 Domestication and foreignization in translation
Many theories of translation revolve around very similar binary oppositions indicating the
difference between so-called free and literal translation. These binary oppositions are often
redefined and given new labels, but in essence remain the same. Pym (2014a: 32) provides a
good overview of the variety of terms adopted by various translation theorists:
Table 1. Two opposed ways of translating
Schleiermacher (1813) Verfremdung Entfremdung
Nida (1964) formal dynamic
Newmark (1981) semantic communicative
Levy (1963/2011) anti-illusory illusory
House (1997) overt covert
Toury (1995/2012) adequacy acceptability
Venuti (1995) resistant
(foreignization)
fluent
(domestication)
Other terms have been suggested as well: text-oriented vs. reader-oriented translation (Leighton
1991) and source-oriented vs. text-oriented approach (Pedersen 2011). These dichotomies are
famously described by Friedrich Schleiermacher as follows: “Either the translator leaves the
author in peace, as much as possible, and moves the reader towards him; or he leaves the reader
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in peace, as much as possible, as moves the author towards him” (Schleiermacher 1813/2012:
49). To put it in other words: the former, domestication, implies a fluent, reader-oriented
translation where elements foreign to the target culture are replaced by more familiar ones; the
latter, foreignization, involves a resistant translation where elements foreign to the target culture
are retained with little regard for transparency of the text.
The terms domestication and foreignization were first coined (or rather — similar
German terms were used) by Scheiermacher in the early 19th century. In the 1990s, they were
picked up and further developed by American translator and translation scholar Lawrence
Venuti in his influential books The Translator’s Invisibility (1995) and The Scandals of
Translation (1998). In these works, he sharply criticizes translations with domesticating trends
which prevail in British and American translation culture. He describes this method as
“ethnocentric violence” and “ethnocentric reduction of the foreign text to target-language
cultural values” (Venuti 1995: 50). Venuti’s terms gained great popularity in translation studies,
particularly in culture-oriented research — both because his works sparked a debate on
translation methods and because the terms domestication and foreignization are transparent
vivid metaphors. Venuti’s method, however, was challenged as being too prescriptive and
imprecise. As Jukka Mäkisalo points out in his meta-theoretical analysis of the use of the
concepts domestication/foreignization, the key features of both concepts are ideological: they
are linked to the values of source and target cultures and ethics of translation. Most importantly,
he draws our attention to the fact that, being metaphors, the notions of domestication and
foreignization “do not easily bend to the needs of empirical research” (Mäkisalo 2012: 64).
Venuti’s own research, he argues, is largely based on intuition (ibid: 65). Similarly, Jeremy
Munday notes that Venuti does not offer a concrete methodology that could be applied to the
analysis of translation (Munday 2012: 231).
In the recent years, translation theorists have been moving away from open criticism of
a particular approach to translation. Descriptive translation studies have been increasingly
replacing prescriptive studies. Within the descriptive paradigm, scholars began to reflect on
how to best operationalize the concepts of domestication/foreignization and to use them in
empirical research. Instead of making claims based on a limited number of examples,
translation scholars now seek to perform a thorough, systematic analysis of translation
phenomena. I will name but a few examples. Several articles in the collection Domestication
and Foreignization in Translation Studies (2012) report on descriptive empirical research of
these two opposing strategies, including a quantitative study by Piet van Poucke that has proved
most relevant to my investigation. Scotland based scholar Maya Birdwood-Hedger has
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conducted a comprehensive study of domesticating and foreignizing strategies in a number of
English translations of Anna Karenina (Birdwood-Hedger 2010). A collection of articles edited
by Dorota Guttfeld (2015) discusses domestication and foreignization in Polish–English and
English–Polish translations by presenting case studies of film, prose, poetry, non-fiction etc.
Despite scholarly attempts to understand how domestication and foreignization interact
in target texts, the concepts are not always regarded as located on a continuum. In his meta-
analysis, Mäkisalo notes that only in 8 out of 31 articles on the subject, domestication and
foreignization are described as forming a spectrum rather than a dichotomy (Mäkisalo 2012:
68). He also argues that the spectrum is not possible to describe without reference to specific
translation phenomena on different linguistic levels. Once the dichotomy of
domestication/foreignization is applied to a concrete translation problem, there is no way
around a spectrum (ibid: 68–69). In my work, domestication and foreignization are regarded as
overall translation strategies that represent the two poles of a continuum. However, I do not
attempt to study these strategies on all linguistics levels. Rather, I explore the interaction of
domestication/foreignization in relation to one specific translation problem — realia. I assume
that various translation solutions for ST realia may be placed at different points of this
continuum and examined in a qualitative and quantitative study.
In their discussions of domestication/foreignization, some scholars make the important
observation that this opposition is not symmetric (see Mäkisalo 2012, Ambrosiani 2012).
Mäkisalo quotes Paloposki and Koskinen’s argument on the unmarked nature of domestication:
“Unmarkedness is often associated with domestication: translations are indistinguishable from
same-language original works” (Paloposki and Koskinen 2004: 29). It is true, that, unless one
compares a TT with a corresponding ST, domesticating solutions are normally not detectable,
while foreignizing ones often stand out. Because of their markedness, foreignizing translation
procedures are unlikely to dominate regardless of what translation aspect is scrutinized. Since
translation by definition aims at communicating the meaning of an ST by means of a TL, it is
possible to argue that any translation is inherently domesticating. Venuti himself readily admits
that translations “inevitably perform a work of domestication” (Venuti 1998: 5). Thus, the
question to ask is not whether a given translation (or any aspect of it) is predominantly
domesticating or foreignizing. A more correct question would be: to what extent is a given
translation (or an aspect of it) domesticating? In this way, we acknowledge from the very
beginning that a translation is dominated by domestication and would like to know to what
extent it is domesticating — as opposed to other translations. As there is no way of establishing
a “baseline degree of domestication” of realia, to which a particular TT may be measured
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against, one needs to perform a comparative study. For this reason, my focus in the present
work is on comparing different TTs. I would like to see whether the degree of domestication of
realia is the same in different subsets of my data.
1.4 Research questions
The main objective of this dissertation is to investigate how Russian realia are treated in a
number of Norwegian and English literary translations published in recent years. This inquiry
can be divided into two more specific parts — qualitative and quantitative.
In the first part, I would like to make an inventory of translation procedures used to
render realia in the selected novels, develop a classification of these procedures and perform a
qualitative analysis of translation solutions for realia in specific contexts. I am particularly
interested in the comparative aspect of this analysis — that is, whether a Norwegian solution is
significantly different from a corresponding English solution for the same SL utterance and in
what way.
In the second part of my study, I perform a quantitative analysis, seeking to answer the
following questions:
1. How can we operationalize the Venutian notions of domestication and foreignization?
Is it possible to construct a quantitative model, which can be used in a comparative
analysis of translation solutions for realia?
2. Will the statistical calculations based on this model give similar or different results for
different translations? In other words, what kind of translation regularities can be
observed in the selected texts?
More specifically, the comparative part of the study aims at investigating the following:
2a. Is each of the selected Norwegian translations different from the corresponding
English translation in the degree of domestication/foreignization of Russian realia?
2b. Do the six selected Norwegian translations (combined) differ from the six selected
English translations in the degree of domestication/foreignization of Russian realia?
2c. Are the three Norwegian translations by Marit Bjerkeng different from the three
Norwegian translations by Dagfinn Foldøy in the degree of
domestication/foreignization of realia?
3. What implications do the answers to the above questions have for future research?
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The division of the quantitative comparative analysis into three parts (2a, 2b, 2c) is motivated
by the following considerations:
• It is difficult to apply the notion of “representativeness” to original fictional prose and
literary translation. Moreover, the texts for my study were not selected entirely at
random. Thus, patterns which I will observe for my dataset cannot be further
generalized. That being said, I tried to include as diverse texts as possible and as many
as possible given the time restrictions for this project, in order for my findings to have
other potential explanations than merely the specifics of a particular text or genre.
• The fictional texts selected for this study differ in terms of genre, types of narrative and
narrator, fictional time and place, use of dialog, etc. Realia used in these texts are
accordingly varied, i.e. they come from different thematic and temporal groups. I thus
believe that it will be interesting to determine the degree of domestication/foreignization
of realia in Norwegian and English translations of each specific source text in order to
see how these results will compare to the findings discovered in the more encompassing
part of the quantitative analysis. One of the key reasons for doing this is that translation
solutions in a given TT may comply with a specific strategy chosen for this translation
and therefore be more consistent than those found across different TTs.
• Finally, I am interested in seeing whether comparing three works of a specific translator
with three works of another translator, both of whom work in the same cultural context,
will reveal any interesting patterns. This part of the analysis is the most problematic
one, because the texts translated by these two individuals are incomparably different;
hence the text characteristics may be the main explanation for differences in realia
treatment. The choice of a given translation solution is always motivated by such a large
number of various factors that it is extremely difficult, if possible at all, to single out the
key explanatory factors among them. It particularly concerns product-oriented research
where one has no access to translators’ own rationalizing of their decisions.
Nevertheless, the translator’s own imprint on the style of a TT is inevitable, and I expect
that it will manifest itself in patterns revealed with the use of my quantitative model.
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1.5 Hypotheses based on the Polysystem Theory
According to the Polysystem Theory, developed by Itamar Even-Zohar (1979), translated
literature may not have the same status within different national literary polysystems (in my
case of Norway and Britain/U.S.). The position occupied by translated literature in the
polysystem impacts translation strategies: if it occupies a peripheral position, translators tend
to use conventional methods of translating (see more in Section 2.4).
It can be claimed that the present British/American culture is rather “self-centered”, with
translated literature occupying a peripheral position and fluency being “the hegemonic strategy
in English-language translation” (Venuti 1995: 262). As stated in the Statistical Report on
translated literature in United Kingdom and Ireland (2015), 1 between 1990 and 2012
translations constituted around 3% of all publications, while literary translations (defined as
falling within the 800 Dewey classification category) accounted for around 4% of all literary
publications. Similarly, Allen (2007: 24) cites Bowker report: “The English-speaking countries
remain relatively inhospitable to translations into English from other languages. In all, there
were only 14,440 new translations in 2004, accounting for a little more than 3% of all books
available for sale”.
I have not been able to find statistics on specifically literary translations in Norway, but
more general statistics on translations can be found. A report based on data from the National
Library shows that in 2009, translated books accounted for about 30% of all published books
in Norway (defined as any publications over 49 pages)2. When it comes to the source languages,
Russian is not among the most frequent languages from which English and Norwegian
translations are made. According to the United Nations’ Index Translationum database,3 in
1990–2012 the top languages translated into English were French and German, while the top
languages translated into Norwegian were Swedish and Danish. Russian as a source language
is ranked 6th for English translations and 9th Norwegian translations. These numbers indicate
the following:
1 https://www.lit-across-frontiers.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Translation-Statistics-
Study_Update_May2015.pdf 2 http://www.medienorge.uib.no/statistikk/medium/boker/214 3 http://www.unesco.org/xtrans/
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• translations in Norway have a more privileged position compared to translations in
English-speaking countries, which comes as no surprise given the present global
dominance of English language and culture;
• however, translations specifically from Russian occupy a peripheral position in both
Norway and the UK/U.S.
All things considered, we may expect that the selected English translations will be found at
least as domesticating as the Norwegian ones (and possibly more domesticating). As for the
intralingual comparison, two groups of Norwegian translations are expected to be
approximately the same in their degree of domestication. With regard to realia, I can formulate
two main null hypotheses for my investigation:
1. The treatment of realia is the same in the degree of domestication in the selected
Norwegian TTs as compared to the selected English TTs.
2. The treatment of realia is the same in the degree of domestication in the two groups of
the Norwegian TTs — translations by Marit Bjerkeng and translations by Dagfinn
Foldøy.
The alternative hypothesis in both cases is that there is a greater degree of domestication in one
of the two samples. Working with such a limited body of data and examining only one
translation problem, I obviously cannot make any generalizations about national translation
norms. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see if the discovered patterns in degrees of
domestication/foreignization will prove to be in accord or in conflict with the Polysystem
Theory.
1.6 Outline of the dissertation
Following the introductory Chapter 1, Chapter 2 discusses some general theoretical issues
relating to studies of culture-specific lexis in translation. These are issues of linguistic and
cultural translatability, prescriptive and descriptive equivalence and invariant of translation. In
this chapter, I also give an account of the notions of translation strategy and translation
procedure/shift, as well as more general concepts of translation regularities and translation
norms rooted in the Polysystem Theory.
Chapter 3 addresses some aspects of the definition of realia. Realia are discussed from
different angles: as a translation problem, as a culturally, historically and textually dynamic
category and as terminological lexis. I give my own definition of realia, outline the scope of
11
realia and identify word classes covered by realia. Finally, I present local, temporal and
thematic classifications of realia and briefly discuss the role of realia in literary translation.
Chapter 4 defines the criteria for the selection of source and target texts which have
been used for this study. Further, it presents the six selected Russian novels and their Norwegian
and English translations and gives a summary of each source text.
Chapter 5 describes the methodology of the present study. First, a unit of comparative
analysis is defined, and the process of data retrieval is outlined. After that, universal and
specialized typologies of translation shifts are briefly discussed, followed by a detailed
description of the typology of shifts developed for the purposes of this study. Finally, qualitative
and quantitative approaches to realia are presented, and their limitations considered. At this
point, I also show how these two approaches are combined in my study of realia. Most
importantly, I present my quantitative model of domestication and foreignization that is
subsequently employed in the statistical calculations.
Chapter 6 is devoted to a comparative qualitative analysis of the coupled pairs identified
in my data. The discussion of realia and their translation solutions is structured according to the
thematic classification outlined in Chapter 3. I focus on a number of specific examples from
the selected STs and TTs and attempt to showcase the great variety of translation shifts found
in my data. I discuss how these shifts work in different contexts and reflect on how they may
be interpreted by the TT readers. Each section of Chapter 6 ends with a brief statistical
comparison of the Norwegian and English translation shifts.
Chapter 7 gives a comparative quantitative analysis of the translation solutions.
Statistical calculations based on my quantitative model are presented in the following order:
first, each Norwegian TT is compared with the corresponding English TT; then, all the six
Norwegian TTs combined are compared with the six English TTs; and finally, the three
Norwegian TTs made by one translator are compared with the three Norwegian TTs made by
the other translator.
The conclusions in Chapter 8 sum up the main findings of the study and present some
suggestions for future research. The thesis ends with an index which includes those Russian
realia which have been discussed at some length in the thesis.
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2 Theoretical Issues
2.1 Issues of translatability Sergei Vlakhov and Sider Florin’s monograph (1980, 1986/2012) on realia is entitled
Neperevodimoe v perevode (The Untranslatable in Translation). This paradoxical title points to
the issue of translatability which, in one form or another, has always been part of the translation
studies discourse. Before I turn to the question of whether realia are in fact a case of linguistic
and/or cultural untranslatability in Section 3.1, I would like to take a closer look at how the
issue of translatability is treated by translation studies scholars.
Theo Hermans regards total translatability and total untranslatability as limiting
concepts arguing: “Full translatability, in the sense of an integral reproduction of a text’s full
signification, may be possible only in the case of artificial formal languages. Complete
untranslatability would be beyond words, as it would imply the impossibility of communication
or even semiosis” (Hermans 2011: 300). Nevertheless, as he points out, we can distinguish two
opposing views on translatability depending on the degree to which one believes adequate
translation is possible.
The universalist view regards the differences between languages, despite often causing
difficulty in translation, as not very profound. It claims that since human brains function in
virtually the same way and conceptualize the same physical reality, anything can be expressed
in any language. One of the first scholars to clearly formulate this idea was Roman Jakobson:
“All cognitive experience and its classification is conveyable in any existing language”
(Jakobson 1959/2012: 128). He further clarifies this statement: “Languages differ essentially in
what they must convey and not in what they may convey” (Jakobson 1959/2012: 129, emphasis
in the original). The same idea is promoted by Andrei Fedorov, another linguistically oriented
scholar from the Soviet translation school: he maintains that any language is a means powerful
enough to convey any content expressed in another language (Fedorov 1983: 122). Fedorov
argues that whenever a specific element within a ST is impossible to translate, it is usually
possible to compensate this loss with various grammatical and lexical means at the macrolevel
(ibid). The only true exceptions from the “translatability principle”, he believes, may be found
among those SL elements which deviate from the linguistic norm of the SL in question and
which are perceived as such only in respect to the given SL: e.g. dialect, sociolect, slang.
However, even these types of translation problems are often successfully solved, which he
demonstrates with a range of examples from real translations.
13
As far as translatability sceptics are concerned, they do not rule out the possibility of
translation as such, but rather stress the fact that, since languages differ significantly in their
lexical and grammatical aspects, losses are inevitable even where full equivalents seem to be
available. Schleiermacher goes as far as postulating that “not a single word in one language will
correspond perfectly to a word in another” (Schleiermacher 1813/2012: 46). This view shared
by German Romantics was later taken up by Sapir and Whorf who believed that structural
asymmetries between languages do not allow for a fully adequate translation.
The asymmetries are assumed to be partly caused by the close relation between language
and culture. Sapir points to the extralinguistic reasons for untranslatability: “No two languages
are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds
in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different
labels attached” (Sapir 1929: 209). One category of lexical items which illustrates this point
very well is, in my view, realia.
In discussing issues of untranslatability, J. C. Catford (1965) examines both its linguistic
and cultural causes. According to Catford (1965: 94), linguistic untranslatability may be
observed when certain formal features of the source language are functionally relevant in a
particular communicative situation (e.g. when changes in gender of Russian past tense verbs
become relevant in a specific situation and cause problems in translation). The example he
discusses at length is the Russian verb прийти which means “come/arrive on foot”. In most
cases, the fact that English lacks a corresponding word with the same specific meaning causes
no problem in translation. In rare cases, however, the more restricted meaning of прийти may
become a “functionally relevant feature of the situation” and even be part of a pun (ibid: 96).
In Maxim Gorky’s Childhood, the child meets his grandmother who has travelled down the
river from Nizhnii Novgorod (Lower Novgorod) to see her family. The following conversation,
presented here with a verbatim translation, occurs:
— Ты откуда пришла? [Thou whence came-on-foot?]
— С верху, из Нижнего, да не пришла, а приехала! По воде-то не ходят! [From above, from
Lower and not came-on-foot, but came-by-transportation. On water-(!) not they-go-on-foot]. (cited after
Catford 1965: 97, with a minor change4)
The child finds it confusing both because of the ambiguity of с верху (сверху) and нижний as
well as because of the specific meanings of пришла and приехала. He assumes that she came
4 In his citation, Catford for some reason omits “а приехала” [came-by-transportation] which further specifies the way of arrival.
14
from upstairs (when in fact she means “from up the river”) and is wondering how it is possible
to come-by-transportation downstairs and, what is more, on water. Certain semantic features of
прийти/приехать which normally may be ignored in English translation, have to be somehow
preserved in this case in order to justify the child’s confusion. Catford considers the (relative)
untranslatability of this excerpt purely linguistic — that is, due entirely to differences between
the source language and target language.
Another type of untranslatability — cultural untranslatability — occurs, according to
Catford, when a situational feature, functionally relevant for the ST, is completely absent from
the target culture (Catford 1965: 99). He regards this sort of untranslatability as less problematic
than linguistic untranslatability because various tried-and-tested translation solutions are
available in such cases. Catford offers examples such as Finnish sauna and Japanese yukata
which differ in many significant ways from the English possible translations bath/bathtub and
bathrobe/dressing-gown respectively. He further suggests that translation of these culture-
specific elements will produce unusual collocations in the TL: for instance, if we read, in a
translation from Japanese, that someone takes a bath, then puts on his bathrobe and goes to a
cafe still wearing the bathrobe, we would perceive this as an unusual situation and, on the
linguistic level, as an unusual collocation. In other words, the effect that can be described as
“cultural shock” might as well be viewed as “collocational shock”, according to Catford. The
scholar therefore wonders if cultural untranslatability is merely a variety of linguistic
untranslatability.
Indeed, culture-specific elements might produce rather strange collocations in
translation: both loanwords, calques and certain types of paraphrase might be perceived as
marked by the reader. However, more often than not, when domesticating procedures are used
— explicitation, functional or contextual substitution, etc. (see Section 5.3.2) — culture-bound
items are treated in such a way that the corresponding TT has nothing but perfectly normal
collocations.
The distinction between linguistic and cultural untranslatability which Catford proposes
and at once questions himself, is, I believe, still valid to the extent that some of the translation
difficulties do seem to arise mainly for extralinguistic reasons and therefore could be regarded
as culture-induced problems. However, it is not always possible to establish whether the
primary reason for the gap between SL and TL is linguistic or extralinguistic. Let us consider
the following example from my data. In Boris Akunin’s Koronatsiia, the majordomo of the
grand duke explains the difference between formal and informal modes of address in Russian:
15
RU TT: Вот после этого самого случая Эндлунг и стал со мной как шелковый: говорил вежливо,
шуток больше не позволял, а звал по имени-отчеству и только на “вы”. Надобно сказать, что у
человека моего положения с обращением на “вы” и “ты” отношения особенные, потому что и
статус у нас, дворцовых служителей, особенный. Трудно растолковать, как это получается, что от
одних людей оскорбительно обращение на “ты”, а от других обидно услышать “вы”. Но служить
я могу только этим последним, если вы понимаете, что я имею в виду (BA).
In this excerpt, the character not only describes the difference between formal and informal
modes of address in Russian (including the tradition of addressing people by their given name
followed by a patronymic), but also alludes to very subtle connotations that may be evoked in
certain situations — when suddenly the polite formal way of address is perceived as insulting.
Knowing that modern English does not distinguish between formal and informal you while in
Norwegian this distinction recently fell out of use, we may anticipate difficulties in translation.
However, what is more interesting is whether this problem should be classified as mainly
linguistic or cultural (caused by extralinguistic factors).
On the one hand, it is a culture-specific custom — to address people in different ways
depending on their social status, age, degree of familiarity, etc. On the other hand, a native
speaker of Russian, even if s/he wanted to, could not possibly ignore the formal/informal
opposition of ты/вы: in the same way one has to choose a singular or plural form when the
language has the grammatical category of number, one is compelled to choose between the
formal вы or informal ты when addressing someone (“Languages differ in what they must
convey”, — to repeat Jakobson’s words, discussed above). Thus, perhaps, we deal primarily
with the systemic linguistic difference between the SL and TL when translating from Russian
to, say, English. Then again, one might argue, the very fact that a given language preserves the
formal/informal opposition may indicate that the social hierarchy remains significant in the
culture of this language community. Hence it seems to be a cultural feature and we have come
full circle.
Let us now have a look at how this excerpt has been treated in the English and
Norwegian translations:
NO TT: Etter denne episoden var Endlung som smør mot meg: han snakket høflig, gjorde ikke narr av
meg lenger, tiltalte meg med navn og farsnavn og alltid med De. Her må det nevnes at for en mann i
min stilling har tiltale med De og du sine helt særlige betydninger, fordi vi som tjener ved hoffet, har en
helt særlig status. Det er vanskelig å forklare hvordan det har blitt slik, for fra enkelte er det krenkende å
høre en tiltale med du, mens det fra andre er sårende å bli tiltalt med De. Og jeg kan bare tjene for disse
siste, om De forstår hva jeg mener.
16
EN TT: After that incident Endlung became as smooth as silk with me: he spoke politely, told no more
jokes at my expense, addressed me by my name and patronymic and always spoke politely. I must
say that for a man in my position the question of degrees of politeness is particularly complicated, since
we court servants have a quite distinctive status. It is hard to explain why it is insulting to be called by
your first name by some people, and insulting to be addressed formally by others. But the latter are the
only people that I can serve, if you take my meaning.
Clearly, rendering this paragraph has been a greater challenge for the English translator. The
Norwegian translator simply exploited the fact that the novel is set in pre-revolutionary Russia,
hence outdated lexis (the formal you — De) does not look out of place in the novel. The only
potentially problematic part of the TT is the one where the protagonist is said to be addressed
by his name and patronymic. The word farsnavn (father’s name) roughly corresponds to
отчество, but the fact that it is commonly used as part of polite address in Russia still requires
cultural knowledge.
By contrast, the English translator had to seek more creative solutions. First, he
substitutes звал только на “вы” for spoke politely, which results in a repetition within the
same sentence as spoke politely is already included as a literal translation of another clause.
Further, обращение на “вы” и “ты” is rendered descriptively as degrees of politeness, and
finally, ты is translated with by your first name and вы — as to be addressed formally. As we
can see, in order to render this excerpt, the translator had to rely on the restricted linguistic
means available to him in English (this is done by avoiding personal pronouns) and at the same
time to find functionally similar substitutes that could communicate to some extent the social
conventions of the SL community. This is a good illustration of how the challenge faced by a
translator might be of both linguistic and extralinguistic nature.
Andrew Chesterman in his book on translation memes discusses five translation
supermemes, i.e. “the ideas of such pervasive influence that they come up again and again” in
translation theory (Chesterman 1997: 8). Untranslatability is named as one such supermeme,
with religious and philosophical roots going back to the Tower of Babel legend. The scholar
makes an interesting assumption that the question of translatability suffers from the persistence
of the Aristotelian binarism which views categories (such as “translatable”) as discrete —
“things are either absolutely translatable or not, and therefore mostly not” (ibid: 11). Instead,
he suggests regarding translatability as a continuum. Catford, too, points to the undeniable fact
that translatability forms a continuum rather than a dichotomy. He sums it up: “SL texts and
items are more or less translatable rather than absolutely translatable or untranslatable”
(Catford 1965: 93, emphasis in the original).
17
Chesterman (1997: 11) further points out that if translation is viewed as a form of
language use (i.e. in terms of parole, not langue), then nothing is untranslatable and even the
most intricate puns may be explained in one way or another. Similarly, Hermans stresses the
quantitative aspect in the translatability debate. He notes that translatability sceptics do not
claim that translation is impossible in principle. Instead, they claim that, due to the differences
between languages and cultures, “translation understood as a linear discourse replicating
another discourse with regard to both length and meaning is not possible” (Hermans 2011: 302).
This brings us back to both Jakobson with his conviction that everything is “conveyable in any
existing language” and Fedorov with his claim that items which cannot be translated on the
same level (e.g. words) may be compensated on a higher level (phrase or sentence). The view
of translatability as a spectrum and not a discrete concept is dominating in translation studies
today, hence problematic features of the ST are normally labelled as translation-resistant rather
than untranslatable.
Chesterman ends his discussion of the untranslatability supermeme with a rhetorical
question: “No communication is perfect, so why should translation be?” (Chesterman 1997: 11).
Jan Pedersen echoes this point by saying that if two persons speaking the same language cannot
be expected to understand each other fully, then, cross-linguistically, this is even more the case,
because “the worldviews in question reside in different cultures” (Pedersen 2011: 57). Perfect
translation, he argues, is indeed impossible in the same way as perfect or absolute
communication is impossible. Of course, what constitutes a perfect translation, however
hypothetical it may be, is a difficult question in its own right. Attempts to answer it have often
been linked with the concept of equivalence which I will discuss in the next section.
2.2 Equivalence in translation There is hardly a more controversial, complex and yet, it seems, unavoidable subject in
translation studies than that of equivalence. Chesterman names it as one of the five translation
supermemes, but at the same time calls it “a supermeme in decline” (Chesterman 1997: 10). A
number of contemporary translation theorists discard the notion of equivalence altogether
(Snell-Hornby 1988, Gentzler 1993/2001, Hervey and Higgings 1992), because it is regarded
as having little relevance to translation or even as a hindrance to research. Yet, this notion needs
to be dealt with in my work, as realia are often defined as a case of lexical non-equivalence
(Baker 2011a, Fedorov 1983, Leppihalme 2011, Kostomarov and Vereshchagin 1983, 2005,
Vlakhov and Florin 1980). The notion of equivalence is crucial in two respects in my research:
18
1) in defining the concept of realia and thus identifying the data to be collected and
analyzed;
2) in describing the nature of relationships between the original realia in STs and its
translation in TTs and thus identifying the type of translation procedure in a sentence — and
ultimately translation strategy in a given TT.
By the 1950s and 1960s, scholars became increasingly dissatisfied with the elusive
classic opposition of “free” versus “literal” translation and began seeking a clearer framework
for describing translation. In their attempts to establish the relationship between the ST and the
TT in a more systematic way, various theorists soon recognized the need to develop a concept
of equivalence (Catford 1965, Jakobson 1959/2012, Nida 1964, Nida and Taber 1969). At this
point, translation studies was not yet regarded as a separate discipline, and much of the
theorizing about translation was done by linguists. Among them was the Russian-American
linguist Roman Jakobson who in 1959 wrote one of his major essays — “On Linguistic Aspects
of Translation”. This work proved influential in translation theory. In his essay, Jakobson
adopts a very broad view of translation, distinguishing between intralingual translation
(rewording), interlingual translation (translation proper) and intersemiotic translation
(transmutation, i.e. an interpretation of verbal signs by means of nonverbal signs) (Jakobson
1959/2012: 127). Crucially, interlingual translation, or translation proper, is defined through
the notion of equivalence: “translation involves two equivalent messages in two different codes”
(ibid).
Jakobson admits that “on the level of interlingual translation, there is ordinarily no full
equivalence between code units” (ibid). He gives the example of the English word cheese,
which, according to him, cannot be fully identified with its standard Russian counterpart сыр
because Russian сыр, unlike English cheese, does not cover the concept of cottage cheese.
Instead, Russian has a separate word for cottage cheese — творог. Jakobson points out that
more often than not translation “substitutes messages in one language not for separate code-
units but for entire messages in some other language” (ibid). What this seems to suggest is that,
according to Jakobson, while there might not be full equivalence between specific lexical units
(code-units) in a language pair — as different language systems split reality in different ways
— equivalence can nevertheless be established beyond the word level (message).
Despite frequently using the terms “equivalence” or “equivalent”, Jakobson does not
elaborate on what he means by these. Nevertheless, his work was in many ways pioneering in
the discussion of equivalence and translatability and it gave rise to an enduring debate on the
19
nature of equivalence. Jakobson’s famous maxim “Languages differ essentially in what they
must convey and not in what they may convey” (ibid: 129) has ever since been an important
reference point in every discussion of cross-linguistic differences.
In the 1960s, Jakobson’s ideas about linguistic meaning and equivalence were further
developed by the renowned American linguist and translator Eugene Nida. He was one of the
first scholars to aim for a more systematic approach to translation in general and to equivalence
in particular. In his two most significant works — Toward a Science of Translating (Nida 1964)
and The Theory and Practice of Translation (Nida and Taber 1969) — he made an attempt to
use recent advances in linguistics to develop a theory of translation. Among other things, he
discards the outdated idea that a word has a fixed meaning and adopts a functional definition
of meaning: a word acquires its meaning through context, including context in its broadest
understanding — a cultural context.
An important distinction that Nida makes in his analysis of lexis is one between
referential (denotative) meaning and connotative (emotive) meaning (Nida 1964). Nida further
suggests a number of techniques that are meant to help a translator determine the meaning of a
word, such as hierarchical structuring (analyzing hypernyms–hyponyms relationships of words)
and componential analysis (identifying sets of semantic features of a given word and
contrasting them with those of related words). These methods, according to Nida, might be used
as a way of understanding obscure parts of an ST as well as a way of finding adequate
translation solutions. In my study, they will help to identify translation procedures used in
rendering realia.
As far as equivalence is concerned, Nida admits that there can be no identical
equivalents in translation, but one must “seek to find the closest possible equivalent” (ibid: 159).
He then identifies two types of equivalence (or “two basic orientations in translating”): formal
equivalence and dynamic equivalence (ibid). These are defined as follows:
1. Formal equivalence “focuses attention on the message itself, in both form and
content” (ibid). In such source-oriented translation, “one is concerned that the message in the
receptor language should match as closely as possible the different elements in the source
language” (ibid). An example that typifies Nida’s formal equivalence is a “word-for-word
translation” in which a translator closely follows the form and content of the original (for
instance, for teaching purposes, in research, etc.).
2. Dynamic equivalence, later termed “functional” equivalence, is based on the concept
that Nida borrowed from Rieu and Phillips (1954) — the principle of equivalent effect. Here,
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one is concerned that “the relationship between receptor and message should be substantially
the same as that which existed between the original receptors and the message” (Nida 1964:
159). In this case, a translator considers linguistic and cultural competence of the reader and
“aims at complete naturalness of expression” (ibid).
Nida emphasizes that the two types of equivalence should be viewed as two translation
poles: there are a number of grades between strict formal equivalence and complete dynamic
equivalence (ibid: 160). These two poles appear to be theoretical constructs rather than
empirical types of translation as, on the text level, it is highly problematic to establish what
would represent the perfect formal or dynamic equivalence. Particularly problematic is the
rhetorical notion of “equivalent effect” on which dynamic equivalence is based. Discussing
poetry, Nida postulates: “The meter may be different, but the overall effect must be equivalent
if the translation is to be in any sense adequate” (ibid: 25). The same idea about equivalent
response is expressed in Nida and Taber (1969) in a slightly less dogmatic but nevertheless
rather straightforward way: “This response can never be identical, for the cultural and historical
settings are too different, but there should be a high degree of equivalence of response, or the
translation will have failed to accomplish its purpose” (1969: 24).
Before long, translation scholars identified the obvious problems of this formula (e.g.
Broeck 1978, House 1997, Larose 1989) as it is quite difficult, if not impossible, to objectively
measure the readers’ response to a particular utterance or a text. Hervey and Higgins (1992:
22–23) point out that it is hard to envisage even a relatively objective assessment of “equivalent
effect” as the effect varies across readers, or even upon the same reader at different times, and
at any rate remains largely unknown. Thus, conclusions based on the notion of equivalent effect
become rather speculative. The only effect translators can directly observe is that produced on
their own minds, and therefore attempts to achieve the equivalent effect are always a subjective
process.
Despite being criticized for some problematic points, Nida’s contribution to translation
studies has been considered important in many respects. Apart from providing techniques for
the analysis of meaning as well as for decoding the ST and encoding the TT, Nida has drawn
scholar’s attention to the issue of source-oriented and target-oriented approaches to translation.
Although it largely seemed to follow the old-age debate about word-for-word and sense-for-
sense translation, it was supported by a great number of examples from real translations in a
variety of languages — something that very few scholars took the trouble doing in the 1960s.
Being not only a translator but also a translator trainer, Nida made conscious attempts to design
21
systematic analytical procedures for practicing translators, which was of immense importance
in the days of vague discussions of translation.
Roughly at the same time, J. C. Catford made an important contribution to the
equivalence debate in his book A Linguistic Theory of Translation (1965). According to Catford,
each language is unique and so is meaning because meaning is a property of language: that is,
Russian texts have Russian meanings and English texts have English meanings, therefore ST
and TT cannot have the same meaning (Catford 1965: 35). Nevertheless, Catford employs the
notion of equivalence and proposes the following dichotomy:
1. Formal correspondence — hypothetical mappings between elements of abstract
language systems (at the level of Saussure’s langue);
2. Textual equivalence — actual observable mappings between element of real STs and
TTs (at the level of Saussure’s parole) (Catford 1965: 27).
This opposition proved influential in translation theory as it brought some order to the otherwise
confusing and rather vague definitions of equivalence. For instance, Werner Koller who put a
lot of effort into refining the notion of equivalence, similarly distinguishes between
Korrespondenz and Äquivalenz (Koller 1979: 176–191), in line with Catford’s opposition:
1. Korrespondenz (correspondence) describes linguistic phenomena in terms of
contrastive linguistics, which compares two language systems;
2. Äquivalenz (equivalence) describes the relationship between items in specific ST–TT
pairs and contexts.
For both Catford and Koller, equivalence seems to be an empirical phenomenon, rather than an
ideal standard against which to measure the quality of translation. Hervey and Higgins (1992:
18–19) link Catford’s and Koller’s opposition of correspondence vs. equivalence to
prescriptive and descriptive approaches to translation:
1. From the prescriptive point of view, equivalence denotes “the relationship between
an SL expression and the standard TL rendering of it, for example as given in a dictionary, or
as required by a teacher, or as consonant with a given theory or methodology of translation”
(Hervey and Higgins 1992: 19).
2. From the descriptive point of view, on the other hand, equivalence is defined as “an
observed relationship between ST utterances and TT utterances that are seen as directly
corresponding to one another” (ibid).
22
As already pointed out, Hervey and Higgins strongly criticize the prescriptive
interpretation of equivalence, particularly Nida’s understanding of it. They argue that “the
normative use” of equivalence is quite problematic because in this case the term is considered
to imply “sameness”. However, in the sense of total sameness equivalence is only used in logic
and mathematics where an equivalent relationship is always objective, unquestionable and
reversible, but, viewed this way, can hardly be applied to translation (ibid: 20). They emphasize
that, if there is any equivalence in translation, it is clearly not an objective equivalence, because
“the translator remains the final arbiter of the imagined effects of both the ST and the TT” (ibid:
22–23).
This kind of criticism was part of a general trend towards more empirical studies
emerging in translation studies in the 1980s and 1990s. Equivalence as a prescriptive notion,
which is supposed to determine “ideal” relationships between STs and TTs was now dismissed
as irrelevant by many scholars. Edwin Gentzler, among others, observed with delight a shift
“from the abstract to the specific, from the deep underlying hypothetical forms to the surface
of texts” (Gentzler 1993: 3–4). He argues that the standards of “equivalent/inequivalent,
right/wrong, good/bad and correct/incorrect”, by which texts were often analyzed, “limit other
possibilities of translation practice, marginalize unorthodox translation, and impinge upon real
intercultural exchange” (ibid: 4). There are, however, theorists who cautiously continue to use
the term “equivalence” in its more or less prescriptive sense. This notably concerns textbooks
in translation studies (Baker 2011a, Hervey and Higgins 1992, etc.). The case of Mona Baker’s
In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation is particularly remarkable: in the introduction
to both editions of this work (1992, 2011), the author alerts the reader that the term equivalence
is used throughout the book merely “for the sake of convenience” — “because most translators
are used to it rather than because it has any theoretical status” (Baker 2011a: 5). Yet, the whole
textbook is structured around the notion of equivalence — the chapters are labeled as
“equivalence on word level”, “equivalence above word level”, “grammatical equivalence”,
“textual equivalence”, “pragmatic equivalence”.
The prescriptive use of the term “equivalence” attracted increasingly more criticism and
resulted in a radical shift to a predominantly descriptive — or empirical — approach to
translation equivalence. One of the leading proponents of empirical equivalence was the Israeli
theorist Gideon Toury who advocated the descriptive paradigm in studying all translation
phenomena — a paradigm that has been growing in importance in today’s translation studies.
Toury suggests accepting as given that a TT is “equivalent” to its ST and to examine only the
nature of relations between them (Toury 1980, 1995, 2012). In other words, Toury’s
23
equivalence postulate may be summarized as follows: “the question to be asked in the actual
study of translations (especially in the comparative analysis of ST and TT) is not whether the
two texts are equivalent (from a certain aspect), but what type and degree of translation
equivalence they reveal” (Toury 1980: 47). In the revised edition of his major work Descriptive
Translation Studies — and beyond (2012), Toury describes the methodology of descriptive
translation studies as follows:
(…) a descriptive study would always proceed from the assumption that equivalence exists between an
assumed translation and a text assumed to be its source. What remains to be uncovered is only the way
this postulate has been realized in each case, e.g., in terms of the balance between what has been kept
invariant and what has undergone transformation (Toury 2012: 113).
It is not difficult to notice a contradiction inherent in Toury’s statement — namely, even though
Toury distances himself from the prescriptive paradigm, the notion of invariant he employs by
definition adds a prescriptive element to his approach. In other words, if we view translation of
lexical items as preservation or transformation of the invariant, we first have to assume that a
lexical item has “an informative core, a transcendental signified, which can be detached from
its carrier (that is, the linguistic message)” (Crisafulli 2003: 54).
In his earlier works, Toury was quite explicit about the necessity of an invariant (or
tertium comparationis) in descriptive translation studies (1978/2004, 1985). This “invariant of
comparison” was referred to as “the adequate translation” and was a hypothetical ideal standard
against which shifts were supposed to be measured. Since it is hard to envisage this kind of
invariant as universally given and since Toury admits himself that no translation is ever fully
adequate to the ST because it functions in a new cultural context, it became difficult to use the
notion of an abstract invariant in practice. For that contradiction Toury was criticized, among
others, by Gentzler (1993), Hermans (1999), Koster (2000), Crisafulli (2003). Discussing the
1995 edition of Toury’s book, Gentzler points out that, notably, Toury only slightly changed
the terminology in his later works, but did not abandon the notion of invariant, which remains
“a hypothetical construct” (Gentzler 1993: 140).
As evident from the quotation above, in the latest, 2012 revision of his influential book
Toury still holds to the notion of invariant. Considering the invariant does seem inevitable if
one studies shifts in translation, as the notions of invariant and shifts are interdependent (Bakker
and Naaijkens 1991: 204–205). It is indeed difficult to imagine how one can establish what has
changed or remained unchanged in the process of translation without first defining the invariant
of comparison.
24
Even though the dominant paradigm of my study is descriptive, the prescriptive
approach, however controversial it may seem to its critics, is going to be useful in one
significant respect. In order to single out a certain lexical class as a translation problem prior to
the actual text analysis, we have to approach it prescriptively — that is, we have to establish
that certain SL lexical items lack formal counterparts in the TL. In other words, the first task
would be to identify systemic lexical differences between languages — problems in formal
correspondence in Catford’s terminology. The prescriptive framework will help me define
realia as a translation problem resulting from lexical gaps between the two language systems
(caused by extralinguistic factors) and thus identify and collect data for my study.
The next step would be to examine this lexis descriptively — namely, to study textual,
or empirical, equivalence. The descriptive approach will be important in establishing actual
intertextual relations between the SL realia and its TL renderings in specific texts — i.e. the
translation procedures being used and the cumulative effect they produce. However, in a
comparative analysis of ST and TT units, there is no way around the concept of tertium
comparationis — something that remains invariant in the comparison — therefore prescriptive
elements are unavoidable at this stage, too. In particular, a typology of translation shifts will
inevitably involve tertium comparationis (see Section 5.3.1).
2.3 Translation Strategies and Translation Procedures/Shifts
The main focus of my study is general translation strategies for rendering realia adopted in the
selected translations from Russian and more specific manifestations of these strategies — shifts. It
is therefore crucial to discuss in more detail how I understand the notion of “strategy” and how I
distinguish it from those of “shift” and “procedure”.
As translation studies is a relatively young discipline, there are quite a few rather unstable
terms in the field that are used in different ways by different scholars. The concepts of “translation
strategy”, “translation procedure” and “translation shift” are part of this non-standardized
terminology, typical of fairly young paradigms. The fact that the term “strategy” is also used in
numerous other disciplines (psychology, sociology, management, second language acquisition, etc.)
only adds to the confusion.
In translation theory, as Kearns (2011: 280–281) points out, the notion of “strategy” may
be used either in the procedural sense or in the textual sense depending on which type of translation
studies is involved and, accordingly, what methods are used:
25
1) process-oriented studies (focusing on the cognitive aspects of translation), or
2) product-oriented studies (focusing on the tangible outcome of a translation process).
This fundamental distinction5 may or may not result in two different definitions of “strategy”. In
order to establish this, we should first consider another significant distinction made by translation
scholars — that between “local” and “global” strategies. Following Steiner (1988), Chesterman
(1997: 88–89) argues that language activity, like any other human activity, has a hierarchical
structure where a higher-level Activity could be split into smaller units (Actions) and still more
specific Operations:
Activity à Actions à Operations
Activity has rather general goals whereas Actions have more specific, lower-level objectives (ibid:
89). According to Chesterman, this model may be applied to translation:
Some of the things we would like to say about translating (such as, translating a text as a whole) will apply to
translation at Steiner’s Activity level but other things — such as, precisely, strategies — will concern lower
levels (ibid: 88).
It stands to reason indeed that, if we study translation as a complex multi-level process, we will
need different terms for different levels. Therefore, following a number of scholars (Chesterman
1997, Lörscher 1991, Jääskeläinen 1993, Kearns 2011), I will distinguish between “local” and
“global” strategies, however with a few terminological adjustments:
1) local translation strategies (also termed translation procedures, shifts, techniques,
solution-types, etc.) refer to the specific operations performed in the process of translation of small
text segments — particular language structures and lexical items. They are an integral part of the
translation process and result from “attempts to deal with systemic differences” which exist
between SL and TL (Bakker et al. 2011: 267). Chesterman refers to local strategies as a sort of
“translation memes” insofar as “they are widely used by translators and recognized to be standard
conceptual tools of the trade” (1997: 87). As memes, strategies are passed on from generation to
generation, though not in a fixed form, as they are always subject to variation (ibid). Notably,
translators employ local strategies to conform to norms — “not to achieve equivalence, but simply
arrive at the best version they can think of” (ibid: 88). Viewed as “memes”, local strategies
represent some sort of an open-end “toolbox” available to translators, regardless of the languages
5 This distinction is part of the overall framework for translation studies proposed by James S. Holmes (1972/2004), where the descriptive branch of the discipline is represented by three types of research: product-oriented, process-oriented and function-oriented (the latter focuses on the socio-cultural context of translation).
26
and texts they are working with. As universal, non-language-specific tools they are typically
included in textbooks on translation (e.g. Baker 2011a).
In translation research, however, these tools are normally studied in a limited number of
authentic translations and in regard to language-specific translation challenges. Consider the
following example from my data for illustration:
RU ST: Правда, там под ним был не овраг в двадцать саженей, а двухверстная пропасть. (BA)
NO TT: Riktignok hang den ikke over en kløft på førti meter, men over en avgrunn på mer enn to
kilometer.
EN TT: Of course, the drop below it was not twenty sazhens, it was a gulf of two versts.
Here we observe a clear difference in the approaches to translation of culture-specific items. The
archaic Russian words (сажень and верста) are translated into Norwegian with modern functional
analogues (meter, kilometer), whereas in the English version they are retained as loanwords. Italics
in the English text highlight the fact that the word sazhen is exotic, but neither its meaning nor the
meaning of verst is explained.
When studying linguistic operations like those in the example above, one can focus either
on the end result of translation (what has been done) or on the actual process leading to this result
(what is being done, how, etc.). According to the latter, process-oriented approach, local strategies
are viewed as part of a dynamic mental process and are for obvious reasons quite difficult to observe
and examine. Nevertheless, recent advances in technology have made it possible for cognitive
theorists to “take a peek” into the translator’s mind and look for various indicators of conscious
choices made by translators — methods such as think-aloud protocols, key-stroke logging and eye-
tracking are now widely used by process-oriented scholars. At the very least, these methods help
to reveal what exactly a particular translator identifies as a translation problem.
When the emphasis moves to the product of translation, on the other hand, local strategies
(or shifts) are regarded as a static textual category and are relatively easy to identify through a
comparative analysis of the source and target texts. However, the challenge of this approach lies in
the fact that the notion of shift requires a definition of the invariant — “those elements which
remain unchanged in the process of translation” (Bakker et al. 2011: 269) (see Section 2.1).
It is not difficult to notice, though, that the product-oriented research inevitably describes
translation process, too: retrospectively, it attempts to establish how translators managed to deal
with translation problems and speculates about the factors considered in their decision-making. If
we draw on the process-oriented definition of local strategy — “a potentially conscious procedure
for the solution of a problem which an individual is faced with when translating a text segment
27
from one language into another” (Lörscher 1991: 76) — then, in product-oriented studies, local
strategy may be defined, I suppose, as a textual manifestation of this “potentially conscious
procedure”. The close relation between the two interpretations of the concept is revealed, among
other things, in the terminology used to label specific types of operations. Chesterman points out
that, since many of them are nominalizations of verbs (“explicitation”, “omission”,
“compensation”), they might be interpreted as pertaining to both process and product of translation,
which may appear confusing (Chesterman 2005: 20). Moreover, the process/product controversy
is embedded in the very word of “translation”: it may refer to both the process and the product of
translating activity.
In other words, however different the methods in the two branches of translation studies
might seem (comparative text analysis vs. key-stroke logging etc.), these approaches do have much
in common. In both cases, a local strategy could be regarded as a “potentially conscious” attempt
to solve a specific translation problem. The difference lies in the fact that, whereas product-oriented
research focuses on the end-result of a translation act (a transfer has been done and may now be
labeled), process-oriented studies also seek to consider the intermediate stages of decision-making
— all the transformations which were evaluated, tried out, rejected and revised by the translator
and which led to the end-result. Moreover, think-aloud protocols or translator interviews allow a
scholar to get a better understanding of the explanatory variables affecting a translator’s decision
and, as a result, to draw less speculative conclusions.
As the nature of my study is product-oriented, I use the notion of local strategy in the textual
sense — that is, in comparing the source text (ST) with the target texts (TT), I examine what kind
of shifts occur in the treatment of realia in translations from Russian. The following two examples
may further illustrate the notion of “shift”:
RU ST: Протягивает маме кусочек оладушка на вилке и, балуясь, тычет ей в рот, зубья воткнулись в
небо — идет кровь. (MS)
EN TT: She holds a piece of crumpet out to Mama on a fork and, indulging her, pops it into her mouth so
that the tines jab her palette — and there’s blood.
RU ST: И вот снова залезаешь на двухэтажные нары и вспоминаешь перед сном что-нибудь хорошее.
Маму, например. Вот бы проснуться дома, а она уже оладушки сделала, все на столе. (MS)
EN TT: So you crawl back into the double bunk and try to think of something good before you fall asleep.
Your mama, for instance. If only I could wake up at home and she would make oladushki and it would all be
on the table.
Russian оладушки (оладьи) are small thick pancakes made of flour, eggs and kefir and typically
served with various toppings. Here, we can see two rather different ways of rendering the same
28
culture-specific lexical item. In the first case, Functional Substitution (see Typology of shifts in
Section 5.3.2) is used — English crumpets are indeed similar to оладушки in both form and
function and are immediately recognized by the reader. However, the word has certain semantic
features that are missing in the original oladushki: crumpets always contain yeast and are usually
made with the use of special crumpet rings. Moreover, as references to traditional foods often bear
strong cultural connotations, the word crumpets might look somewhat odd and out of place in the
Russian setting.
Later in the same text, however, the translator chooses to increase the exoticism of the dish
by using a transliterated loanword (i.e. Retention in my model). No explanation of the lexical item
is given in the text or paratext, which suggests that the translator expects readers either to know
this word or to find the relevant information on their own. Most likely, however, the translator
considers preserving the exotic color of the word in this context more important than replacing
оладушки with something similar in the target culture. The context offers enough details (oladushki
is a type of food that a mother would make for breakfast) to conjure up a nostalgic feeling that
readers can identify with regardless of the specific item mentioned. The shift in the second excerpt
is far more foreignizing than in the first one.
The above is an example of analysis I am going to perform in my study. Apart from
identifying the type of shift used in the TT and locating it on the domestication/foreignization axis,
I will offer a more in-depth discussion of a number of specific realia. In Section 5.3.2, I present a
detailed classification of shifts identified in my data.
2) global strategies refer to more general translator’s intentions and “pertain to broad
questions of textual style and the choice between suppressing or emphasizing specific aspects of
the source text” (Kearns 2011: 281). It should be, of course, borne in mind that these latter strategies
are not easily identifiable as they relate to whole texts and may only be roughly described based on
the cumulative effect of specific local strategies. In translation research, these sorts of
generalization at the macro-level are normally narrowed down to a single translation aspect (or a
couple of aspects) as it is not feasible to consider all minor shifts on all levels and arrive at a clear
conclusion about the overall strategy. Examples of global strategies given by Chesterman (1997:
90) include decisions about whether and how to render ST dialects, whether and to what extent to
modernize an older source text, etc. Global strategies may often be presented in the form of
oppositions (e.g. Venuti’s foreignization vs. domestication) and in that case are best thought of as
poles of a continuum.
29
It is not uncommon for translation scholars to use the terms “strategy”, “procedure”, “shift”
and others interchangeably to refer to “local strategies” (see Aixela 1996, Baker 2011a, Chesterman
1997, etc.) or, as has been shown above, to use the concept “strategy” in a wider or narrower sense.
In my study, in order to reduce terminological confusion between global and local strategies, the
notion of “translation strategies” is reserved for global strategies only. As far as the terms
“procedures” and “shifts” are concerned, they will be used concurrently to describe specific
linguistic operations in translation, since studying static textual “shifts” is to a certain extent a
reconstruction of translation process. In other words, dynamic translation “procedures” may be
viewed as “the methodological mirror image of shifts” (Bakker et al. 2011: 270) — both terms
describe the same phenomenon from two different perspectives. “Shifts” appear to be best suited
for a descriptive study because the term implies changes that are objectively observed in a text and
thus become subject to analysis and classification. However, it is difficult to avoid terminology
with procedural connotations when bringing into focus the agent of translation — the translator:
for instance, it is more natural to say that a translator used the paraphrasing procedure rather than
the paraphrasing shift. In other words, shifts are observed, procedures are used. In addition to that,
I will frequently use the term “translation solution” in my work. This notion differs from
“translation procedure/shift” in the level of abstraction: a specific linguistic TT counterpart of an
ST word is a solution, while the type of relations between them is a shift.
Based on my data about translation procedures applied to realia, I will make an attempt to
arrive at conclusions about a more general translation strategy adopted in specific TTs. The
relations between strategy and procedures/shifts could be presented in a simple diagram:
Figure 1. Translation strategy vs. translation procedure/shift
The issue of translators’ intentions is a crucial one and might explain my preference for the
opposition strategy vs. procedure/shift over the opposition local vs. global strategy. As we have
30
seen above, the connotations of conscious intentions are inherent in the concept of strategy. In that
case, it would make sense to attribute this term to those operations that are most conscious. But
which are most conscious? According to Chesterman (1997: 89–90), both local and global
strategies have the same important characteristics — they are problem-centered and potentially
conscious. The two aspects are closely interrelated.
Kearns (2011: 281) suggests that the view on translation procedures as tools intended to
solve translation problems raises the question of what exactly can qualify as such a “problem”. Is
it always clear what kind of linguistic phenomena will prove problematic for a translator? It has
been mentioned above that process-oriented research helps to identify both more “automatic” and
more conscious (more problematic) parts of the translation process. However, predictably enough,
these problem points are highly subjective. After all, as Chesterman points out, “a problem for
translator X may not be a problem for translator Y; but both translators may arrive at the same
solution” (2005: 21). Although there are certain aspects of the source text that we may expect to be
problematic in most cases for most translators (like dialect, slang, culture-bound vocabulary), one
should be careful about thinking of a “translation problem” as a universal category, even with
regard to a specific language pair. Furthermore, in product-oriented research, it is not feasible to
firmly establish what constitutes a translation problem even on this subjective level. All we have
is the source text and the target text to compare and make inferences from. Therefore, distinctions
that some translation theorists make between more controlled (more “strategic”), and less
controlled translation activity (Kiraly 1995, Jääskeläinen 1993) is quite difficult to apply to
product-oriented research.
Having acknowledged that it is nearly impossible to identify whether and to what extent a
particular translator’s choice was a conscious one, Chesterman draws our attention to an important
point in Lörscher’s definition of strategy: it is potentially conscious (Chesterman 1997: 91). It
implies that, according to Chesterman, most translator’s decisions can be made conscious, for
instance in response to a question. In other words, if we specifically ask the translator why this
particular solution was chosen, he or she might be able to explain the motivation behind his/her
choice.
With regard to the local vs. global opposition, Chesterman suggests that global strategies
are “normally less conscious” than local ones without elaborating on how he has arrived at this
conclusion (ibid). The assumption seems to be motivated by his earlier discussion of the two main
types of translation problems translators deal with (ibid: 90). At the more general level, the problem
to be solved is “how to translate this text or this kind of text”, whereas at the more specific level,
translation solutions are sought in response to questions like “how to translate this structure / this
31
idea / this item”. It seems reasonable to assume that the more general questions are not always
formulated as directly as above and are more often subject to intuition while some of the more
specific issues might be addressed in a more conscious way.
However, there is another way of looking at this. Local strategies might indeed be more
conscious (some more, some less), but at the same time each one of them taken separately could
be somewhat random or, rather, a result of so many independent variables that it becomes difficult
to draw any conclusions about its motivated nature. It has been indicated above that global
strategies, on the other hand, are identified by analyzing a great number of such specific operations
combined and are therefore less arbitrary. The cumulative analysis reveals patterns, which,
although being not fully conscious, are able to tell us something significant about the translator’s
behavior. From this perspective, it seems more appropriate to apply the term “strategy” to
systematic patterns rather than individual solutions.
The question of whether a particular translation choice is a conscious (or potentially
conscious) one is important in another respect, too — namely, it raises the issue of translator errors,
which has direct consequences for my data selection. If we have good reasons to believe that an ST
item received wrong interpretation in the TT due to the translator’s oversight, should we exclude it
from our analysis? Consider the following example:
RU ST: Еда была простая, не праздничная: винегрет, котлеты с макаронами да подгоревшее Никино
печенье, которое она в спешке стряпала перед самым Машиным приездом. (LUM)
NO TT: Maten var enkel, det var ikke akkurat festmat: rødbetsalat og poteter, kjøttkaker med makaroni, og
lever som Nika hadde svidd litt da hun skyndte seg å steke den like før Masja kom hjem.
EN TT: The food was nothing special, not fare for a celebration: a pickled salad, rissoles with macaroni, and
some slightly burned biscuits which Nike had cooked in a rush just before Masha arrived.
In the Norwegian TT, there is a clear instance of mistranslation which is most likely due to the
translator’s oversight. The origin of this error is quite easy to trace: the Russian word печенье
(cookies, biscuits) has been confused with the similar sounding word печень (liver). Although fried
liver is not an uncommon dish in Russian cuisine, this minor error results in the whole menu looking
a little bizarre compared to the original. In the ST, the served dinner appears rather thought-through
and presented in a logical order: traditional Russian salad винегрет as an appetizer, followed by
the main course and, finally, home-made cookies, rather than liver, for dessert. Such clear cases of
oversight are extremely rare in professional translation and, if encountered, will not be included in
the statistical calculations to avoid noise in the data. Apart from such few exceptions, all the
translation procedures used to render realia will be viewed as motivated choices. Consider another
example:
32
RU ST: На самом почетном месте, у царских врат, среди златотканых придворных мундиров и
расшитых жемчугом парадных платий белеют простые мужицкие рубахи и алеют скромные
кокошники (…). (BA)
NO TT: På selve hedersplassen, ved keiserporten, blant gullvevde hoffuniformer og perlebroderte
paradekjoler, ser vi også noen enkle, hvite bondeskjorter og dyprøde skaut (...).
EN TT: In the place of honour, by the royal gates, among the gold-embroidered court uniforms and pearl-
trimmed ceremonial dresses, there are simple white peasant shirts and modest crimson kokoshnik head-
dresses (…).
Whereas the English translator chose to use a combination of a hypernym (“head-dresses”) and a
transliterated loanword (“kokoshnik”) whose exotic nature is emphasized by italics, the Norwegian
translator made use of a synonymic replacement — Functional Substitution. For those, who are
familiar with кокошник, it seems clear that кокошник and skaut differ considerably in their form
and function. Кокошник refers to an old traditional Russian head-dress used to be worn by women
for special occasions. It is tall, nimbus or crest shaped, normally richly decorated with pearls,
goldwork, beads, etc. Even though the people described in the novel scene are peasants, it appears
they did their best to look well-dressed for the solemn ceremony. The word skaut used by the
Norwegian translator (denoting a kerchief used as a headgear) lacks these connotations and is
possibly intended to highlight the contrast between the rich garments of the nobles and the modest
peasants’ clothing. We do not know if the translator is unaware of the difference between the two
types of headwear or if he believes that this difference is insignificant in the given context or else
if this is his way of incorporating the modifier скромные (modest) that precedes кокошники. We
can only speculate about his motives for choosing skaut, but, since the word is semantically related
to кокошник, it cannot be viewed as an error. At any rate, in all dubious cases — unless we deal
with a clear mistake — it will be assumed that the translator’s choice is motivated, that it is made
deliberately and consciously and thus can be included in my study.
In an attempt to summarize the discussion of translation strategies and to demonstrate how
I will proceed with my analysis, I have slightly revised the above diagram:
33
Figure 2. Hypothetical translation strategy vs. identified translation strategy
This illustrates the following: in my study, it is assumed that a translator has a particular overall
strategy as to how handle realia in translation. This general strategy is norm-governed, potentially
conscious and not immediately observable. Initially, it remains hypothetical to scholars. In the
target text, the strategy manifests itself in a range of shifts — the results of specific linguistic
operations. These are also regarded as potentially conscious, motivated, but, unlike strategies, more
easily observable. By analyzing these shifts combined, a translation scholar can make an attempt
to establish the translator’s overall strategy — as opposed to other translators’ strategies (e.g. more
foreignizing or more domesticating).
Finally, if we return to the distinction between process-oriented studies vs. product-oriented
studies, we will see that, while the two approaches have distinctly different methods, they both may
have the same goal — to identify general translation strategies (specific patterns of the translator’s
behavior in a particular text), to observe translation regularities (patterns of translators’ behavior
in a set of texts) and then, ultimately, to theorize about translation norms (regularities of translation
behavior within a specific sociocultural situation). This is particularly true of the research that
emerged in the 1980s and 1990s with the rise of empirical descriptive studies (see Toury 1980,
2012 on norms).
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2.4 Polysystem Theory, Translation Norms and Translation Regularities
Within the Descriptive Paradigm, translation strategies are not viewed as ahistorical phenomena
existing in a kind of vacuum; rather, they are a manifestation of “translation norms” — a
concept rooted in the Polysystem Theory of translation. It was formulated by the Israeli scholar
Itamar Even-Zohar in the 1970s and has since been a very productive model in translation
studies. Many aspects of the theory, most notably the central notion of “system”, were adopted
from the work of the late Russian Formalists. By analogy with linguistics, the Formalist Iurii
Tynianov insisted on studying literature as a system — that is, each “literary fact” should be
examined not in isolation, but as part of a bigger system where elements constantly interact
with each other, both in synchronic and diachronic terms (Tynianov 1929/1967). The rather
broad definition of system allowed Tynianov to view not only individual works, but also whole
literary genres and traditions as systems (Shuttleworth 2011: 197).
Even-Zohar applied the Formalist interpretation of system to translation to make sense
of the historical development of Hebrew literature. He proposed the notion of “polysystem”
which he conceived as a dynamic heterogeneous hierarchy of systems interacting with each
other. According to this view, translated literature is a system within the larger polysystem of
the national literature where it may occupy a central, peripheral or intermediate position (Even-
Zohar 1978). Even-Zohar assumes that typically, in well-established literary systems, translated
literature remains on the periphery. In other cases, however, it may have a privileged position
or gradually achieve it as a result of constant competition between the center and the periphery.
Even-Zohar outlines three cases when translation may play a central role:
a. when a polysystem has not yet been crystallized, that is to say, when a literature is “young”, in the
process of being established;
b. when a literature is either “peripheral” (within a large group of correlated literatures) or “weak”, or
both; and
c. when there are turning points, crises, or literary vacuums in a literature.
(Even-Zohar 1978: 23)
The model is not without flaws — for one thing, it is not clear how we can reliably determine
whether literature is “weak” or “peripheral” at a given point in history or when it becomes
“mature”. This does not, however, detract from what is arguably the most important
contribution of the Polysystem model — namely, the recognition of the fact that there is a
sociocultural dimension to translation. As Baker points out, before the Polysystem approach
was developed, translation studies had often been biased, involving “an evaluative comparison
35
of source and target texts, in isolation from both the source and target contexts of literary
production” (Baker 2011b: 190). Even-Zohar’s work marked a shift towards a historical and
social understanding of how translated texts function collectively (ibid). In other words, it
became clear that, when examining translation phenomena in individual translations, we should
attempt to see them in a larger context — to recognize that regularities observed in translated
literature follow specific patterns, which are brought about not only by the differences in the
linguistic systems of the TL and SL or idiosyncrasies of a specific translator, but also by
sociocultural norms prevailing in the given translator community. As Even-Zohar’s colleague
Gideon Toury aptly puts it: translation is “a norm-governed activity” (Toury 2012: 61).
The concept of translation norms was developed by Toury in the late 1970s to early
1980s as a natural extension of the Polysystem Theory, and it remains central in Toury’s recent
work (Toury 2012). Toury views norms as regularities of translation behavior within a specific
sociocultural situation (Toury 1980). He relates the concept to the humans’ innate flair for
socializing, or sociability, that results in certain conventions which members of a community
feel obliged to follow. Crucially, these conventions are not given and static, they are a result of
negotiations — verbalized or not — taking place in the community. However, conventions are
not equal to norms. In Toury’s model, norms are a step further in the process of crystallizing
the conventions. Whereas conventions are rather vague and optional, norms are more specific
and binding (Toury 2012: 62–63). They are, according to Toury, “performance ‘instructions’
appropriate for and applicable to concrete situations” telling us what counts as right or wrong,
adequate or inadequate (ibid: 63). The scholar further explains that inverted commas used with
the word “instructions” simply indicate that, like conventions, norms “may exist, be learnt and
operate without ever being verbalized” (ibid: 64). However, in the case of norms, verbalization
is always a viable option.
Consciously or subconsciously, an individual makes decisions based on the norms
established in a given community, as he/she is aware that breaking the norms may involve
punitive sanctions (ibid). In relation to translation, an example of a punitive sanction could be
an unconventionally translated book remaining unpublished or criticized; while a rigid
adherence to norms may result in a book’s favorable reception and commercial success.
Toury further suggests that one way of making sense of norms is regarding them as an
intermediate level between “competence” and “performance”. In the mainstream linguistics of
the day, it was dichotomies that were most common (competence and performance in
Chomsky’s terms, or langue and parole in de Saussure’s terms). The major contribution made
by Toury was the introduction of an intermediate level to the dual model, which allowed him
36
to bring into focus what is typical rather than what is or what can be (Baker 2011b: 190). Norms,
representing the typical, enables the researcher to link the raw data of performance with the
idealized categories of competence (ibid). Baker points out that Toury never fails to emphasize
that norms are “a category of descriptive analysis and not, as the term might imply, a set of
options which are thought by the analyst or scholar to be desirable” (Baker 2011b: 190). In my
view, whether to regard norms as a prescriptive or a descriptive category is a matter of
perspective. From the vantage point of the translator, they are prescriptive: the transition from
competence to performance requires “the intermediate presence of (at least a hypothetic
construct of) ‘transfer rules’, or ‘bridging rules’” (Toury 1980: 22). At the same time, from the
perspective of the scholar, norms could indeed be a subject of descriptive analysis.
If we were to illustrate the concept of norms with graphs, these two perspectives would
demand two different visualizations. The prescriptive interpretation of norms involves
performance being directly influenced by norms:
Figure 3. Norms as a prescriptive category
However, the descriptive notion of norms (in translation theory), could be illustrated in a
different way. I suggest a graph where translation norms are observed within performance and
performance is based on competence. Suppose there are a number of hypothetical solutions for
a translation problem: a, b, c, d and e (competence). In our specific study, we find that
37
translators choose only b, c and e in their practice (performance). Further, we do some statistical
calculations and learn that b and c are the most frequent solutions. Only then we begin to
approach the norms. The graph representing this process may look as follows (the definitions
are taken from Baker 2011b):
Figure 4. Norms as a descriptive category
Norms as a prescriptive category typically do not imply a set of official rules or regulations.
However, if such exist, they interact with norms: in a circular manner, the rules both modify
the norms and are modified by them. One example of official regulations is the guidelines for
private contractors published by the European Commission’s translation service with the
purpose of ensuring uniform standards of translated EU documents. However, a descriptive
analysis of the actual practice of translators, who presumably use these guidelines, might point
38
to empirical norms somewhat deviating from the official rules. On the other hand, norms, being
representations of the typical solutions, might entail certain adjustments of the official
regulations.
Investigating norms is a challenging task. Baker argues that it can be done by “studying
a corpus of authentic translations and identifying regular patterns of translation” (Baker 2011b:
190). However, how big the corpus should be in order for translation regularities to be classified
as norms is not entirely clear. Similarly, Toury does not specify precisely how broad his concept
of norms is. If norms are regularities of translation behavior found in a certain community in a
given historical period, then we should first define what may count as “community” as well as
outline the boundaries of the historical period. To illustrate the notion of norms, Pym reports
that in the 19th century the norm for rendering foreign verse to French was to translate it in
prose (Pym 2014a: 70). Here, the community is presumably understood as “all French literary
translators of the 19th century”. To arrive at such a general formulation of a specific norm, one
has to analyze either the entire corpus of the 19th-century French translations of verse or to
extract and study a representative sample. Both of these options appear problematic to me, if
not downright unfeasible. The apprehension that applying the theoretical concept of norms to
empirical research may prove difficult is supported by the fact that one is yet to find a full-
fledged study of translation norms (cf. Pedersen 2011). It seems, whenever scholars make
claims about something that fits the definition of norms — Pym’s discussion of verse in French
translations (Pym 2014a), Burak’s account of the Russian “Kashkintsy group” and their
inclination for “enlivening” the language of translation (Burak 2013), Venuti’s criticism of
domesticating tendencies in contemporary English translations (Venuti 1995, 1998) — they
support their general statements with a limited and fairly arbitrary selection of examples. By
contrast, in developing his notion of norms and the descriptive paradigm in general, Toury
advocates a more systematic and rigorous approach. He encourages scholars to design their
empirical studies of translation in such a way that the results could be “intersubjectively
testable”, i.e. replicable (Toury 1995: 3). Moreover, Toury’s expectation seems to be that, if a
series of studies are performed by different scholars according to the same principles and using
the same methodological tools, these studies may develop into a collective effort to identify
various norms.
Only on such a large scale is it possible to investigate what Toury describes as
“alternative” and “competing” norms. He argues that in any social group at any given point in
time, there tends to be “more than just one norm for each behavioral dimension”, and these
39
norms have different status (Toury 2012: 76). Toury distinguishes between three groups of
norms that may operate simultaneously in a given sociocultural context (ibid: 77):
• the mainstream norms that dominate the center;
• remnants of previous mainstream norms that are growing weaker; and
• rudiments of emerging norms that may become mainstream in the future.
It is difficult to conceive of an individual study which, along with describing the translation
norms in a synchronic analysis, provides a diachronic account of competing norms. This would
require an even larger corpus of texts from different historical periods rigorously examined in
comparison.
As mine is a small-scale study where I aim to compare six English translations with the
corresponding six Norwegian translations of Russian novels as well as three works of one
Norwegian translator with three works of another Norwegian translator, the notion of norms
might be difficult to apply to my results. Rather, the patterns observed in the course of this
study may be termed as regularities of translation behavior in selected texts. Toury, though not
extensively, discusses the notion of “regularities” in relation to “norms” stressing that these are
not synonymous in his model. Regularities are “the results of activity of norms” and thus could
be used as a clue when attempting to extract the norms. Norms may be viewed as “explanatory
hypotheses for actual behavior and its perceptible manifestations” (Toury 2012: 65), but it is
primarily the actual translation practice that is the focus of descriptive translation studies.
According to Toury, the course taken by the researcher is a mirror image of the course taken by
the translator. More specifically, the translator, consciously or subconsciously, starts with
relating his/her work to prevailing norms, and, based on that, develops general strategies for
each particular text or a number of texts. By following this strategy and adjusting it to each
particular context-bound case, he/she applies specific procedures to translation problems on the
micro-level. The researcher, by contrast, starts with the end result of translation, first examining
the most directly observable shifts/procedures, further proceeding to a hypothetical translation
strategy within a text, then, if necessary, observing regularities in a number of texts and, finally,
making assumptions about how these could be used as an indication of a norm. Hence, the
bottom-up model of my analysis may be presented as follows:
40
Figure 5. Bottom-up approach in empirical translation research
Norms are enclosed in parentheses in Figure 5 because, as explained above, it is not possible to
say much about translation norms after conducting a small-scale study. The results of my
analysis may serve as a mere indication of an existing norm among other such indications
provided by other studies. Perhaps, a meta-study could justifiably operate with the notion of
norms. Moreover, if we adhere to Toury’s view of norms as “explanatory hypotheses” for
translator behavior, norms can be said to always escape accurate description and could only be
formulated hypothetically.
The concept of translation norms has been welcomed by descriptivist scholars, but it
has not been without its critics (e.g. Baker 2007, Crisafulli 2002, Hermans 1999). Baker, among
others, notes that the norm model puts too much emphasis on repeated, typical behavior rather
than the intricacy of specific, minor choices of human translators (Baker 2007). However, I
maintain that a quantitative analysis of more general translation patterns may complement a
qualitative study of individual translation solutions. In the field of translation studies today,
both perspectives exist side by side and inform each other.
procedures/shiftsutterance
strategiessingle text
regularitiesset of texts
(norms)corpus of texts
41
3 Realia
3.1 Culture-specific elements as a translation problem In his study of subtitles, Pedersen (2011: 41) points out that there are always certain elements
in an ST that are more difficult to translate than others. These normally require special care and
a conscious use of translation procedures on the part of the translator. Pedersen refers to such
elements as “Translation Crisis Points”, or simply “translation problems” and names songs,
puns and cultural references among examples of these (Pedersen 2011: 42). He cites Lörscher’s
psycholinguistic definition of strategic translating: “strategic translating is translating in which
problem-solving is involved, whereas non-strategic translating is characterized by a problem-
free, automatic replacement of source-language text segments by target-language text segments”
(Lörscher 1991: 88, italics in the original). This distinction is particularly relevant to process-
oriented translation studies. Working within the product-oriented framework, I cannot establish
with certainty which ST elements activate “strategic translating” and which are rendered in a
more automatic manner. I may nevertheless assume that certain SL elements are likely to be
problematic and may be regarded as potential “translation crisis points”.
The reasons why ST items might be translation-resistant roughly fit into two categories
outlined in Catford (1965). As discussed in Section 2.1, he distinguishes between linguistic and
extralinguistic (cultural) untranslatability (Catford 1965: 94–99). At the lexis level, linguistic
problems may be encountered when an SL concept is known in the TL community, but not
lexicalized. An example would be Norwegian søsken or pålegg: both “siblings” and “food
products placed on top of a slice of bread” are concepts well-known in the Russian-language
community, but Russian lacks a one-word counterpart to express these concepts.6 Cultural
untranslatability, on the other hand, has extralinguistic reasons and occurs when an SL concept
is missing from the target culture: the Russian soup щи would be one such example. Translation
of щи becomes problematic because its referent (and the concept of it) is absent in the target
culture (e.g. Norwegian or British/American) and hence there is no lexical item denoting it.7
This sort of opposition between linguistic and extralinguistic translation problems is
acknowledged by many translation theorists (e.g. Baker 2011a, Leppihalme 2001, 2011,
6 Interestingly, in the recent years, the loanword сиблинги started to emerge in Russian research literature on psychology, genetics and occasionally in colloquial speech. 7 According to the semiotic triangle by Ogden and Richards (1923/1972), the referent and the linguistic sign are linked indirectly — through the concept. Linguistic signs evoke concepts, and concepts refer to the referents in the real world.
42
Nedergaard-Larsen 1993, Newmark 1981, Nord 1997, Snell-Hornby 1988), although, as has
been shown in Section 2.1, the distinction is not clear-cut. In my work, I am primarily concerned
with lexical gaps that emerge for extralinguistic reasons.
There is a large variety of terms for culture-induced problems in the translation studies
literature:
• cultural terms, cultural words (Newmark 1981),
• culture-bound problems/elements (Nedergaard-Larsen 1993),
• culture-bound words (Katan 2004),
• culture-specific items (Baker 2011a, Aixela 1996),
• culturemes (Vermeer 1983, Nord 1997, Katan 2004, 2009),
• exoticisms, alienisms (Berkov 2011),
• extralinguistic cultural references (Pedersen 2011),
• lacunae (Malblanc 1961),
• localisms (Finkel 1962),
• non-equivalent lexis (Ivanov 2006, Kostomarov and Vereshchagin 1983, 2005),
• realia (Vlakhov and Florin 1986/2012, Leighton 1991, Leppihalme 2011, Burak 2013,
Tomakhin 1988, Fedorov 1983, Vinogradov 1978).
Apart from the idiosyncrasies of particular scholars and the tradition they are working within,
the choice of a term depends on how one narrows down the scope of the notion in question. In
other words, although the terms above may seem synonymic, they often imply somewhat
different perspectives on the culture-induced problems in translation. For instance, scholars
may or may not include proper names (anthroponyms, toponyms), idioms, allusions etc. in the
discussion of culture-specific lexis.
In Western translation theory, terms containing the word “culture” are the most frequent
ones whenever the discussion centers on extralinguistic translation problems. The main
problem with these is that it is extremely difficult to define “culture”. One interpretation of
culture is presented by Katan (2009) in his discussion of translation as intercultural
communication. He draws on the anthropological “Iceberg Model” popularized in Hall’s “triad
of culture” (1959/1990). According to this model, the part of the “cultural iceberg” that is above
the waterline and thus easy to observe covers aspects of culture such as music, art, food and
drink, dress, architecture, institutions, geography, visible behavior, language, etc. These
observable characteristics of a culture, however, constitute only a smaller portion of the iceberg,
and, what is more important, they are merely manifestations of the deeper invisible level —
43
more complex aspects of culture such as core values and beliefs. Although core values (the
ideas about what is right, good, acceptable) might be shared across different cultures, their
interpretations may vary considerably and result in different norms, attitudes, gender roles,
rituals, traditions, etc. These two underwater layers (core values and their interpretations in
specific situations) along with the observable tip of the iceberg make up the “triad of culture”.
It is not uncommon that translation scholars operating with concepts like “culture-
specific items”, “culture-bound elements” and the like do not offer clear definitions of culture.
An example is Mona Baker’s interpretation of a “culture-specific concept” in her book In Other
Words: it is an SL word that expresses “a concept which is totally unknown in the target culture”
(Baker 2011a: 18). According to Baker, a culture-specific concept may be abstract or concrete,
and she gives an example of an abstract English concept which she believes to be “notoriously
difficult to translate into other languages” — privacy (ibid). From this example alone, it is clear
that Baker’s definition of “culture-specific concepts” is based on a rather broad understanding
of culture, probably one that includes the “underwater” basic cultural values. Furthermore, it is
debatable whether this concept fits Baker’s own criterion of being “totally unknown in the
target culture”8 or whether it is merely loaded with different connotations than similar concepts
in other cultures.
Katan (2009: 79), discussing the “triad of culture”, claims that, at the visible level of the
“cultural iceberg”, one finds what he refers to as culturemes. He draws his definition of
culturemes on Nord’s interpretation: these are “formalized, socially and juridically embedded
phenomena that exist in a particular form or function in only one of the two cultures being
compared” (Katan 2009: 79, Nord 1997: 34). There are a few problems with this definition (and
similar definitions of culture-specific items). Above all, it is rather vague and not discriminative
enough to allow a scholar to identify culturemes. If any differences in “form and function” are
to be taken into account, then the category may become so inclusive as to become nearly all-
encompassing. For instance, schools are found in most cultures and the word expressing the
concept of “school” is found in virtually every language, but can we argue that schools exist in
the same form and function across different cultures? Aixela sums up this problem as follows:
“(...) in a language everything is culturally produced, beginning with language itself” (Aixela
1996: 57, emphasis in the original).
The second problem with Nord and Katan’s definition of culturemes is that the term is
used both in the meaning of linguistic signs (e.g. they discuss translation of culturemes) and in
8 Clearly, much depends on which specific target culture is in question.
44
the sense of referents (culturemes are defined as culture-specific “phenomena”). I believe it is
crucial to distinguish between the two and speak of culture-specific objects/phenomena on the
one hand and culture-specific lexical items referring to them (indirectly, i.e. through concepts)
on the other hand. Leppihalme, perhaps bearing in mind the “semiotic triangle”, applies her
definition of realia not to culture-specific words or objects, but to concepts: these are “concepts
which are found in a given source culture but not in a given target culture” (Leppihalme 2011:
126). Pedersen (2011: 51–52), in turn, speaks of extralinguistic cultural reference viewing it
both as “the relation between a [linguistic] expression and its referent” and the linguistic
expression itself, yet examines his extralinguistic cultural references primarily as linguistic
signs. The terminological confusion is perhaps due to the fact that it is almost impossible to
discuss culture-specific lexical items as a translation problem without frequent recourse to the
extralinguistic reality.
3.2 The concept of realia
The term realia (Russian реалии) was introduced to Russian translation studies by Andrei
Fedorov (1941) and initially was understood as culture-specific objects and phenomena. For
words denoting these objects, Fedorov proposed the term realia-words. Later, however, realia
were increasingly used to refer to translation-resistant lexical items (Sobolev 1952, Vlakhov
and Florin 1970, 1980, 1986/2012, Tomakhin 1988, Ivanov 2006). The term has since been
adopted by some Western translation scholars (e.g. Leighton 1991, Leppihalme 2001, 2011 and
Pedersen 2011 discuss this notion) but has not become mainstream. Pedersen (2011, 44)
criticizes the term realia for being too vague and confusing, as well as potentially causing
misinterpretation due to its primary sense in common use. Moreover, according to him, its
original meaning (Latin “real things”) comes into conflict with the fact that culture-specific
words might have fictional references. In order to resolve this paradox, Loponen (2009)
proposes the term irrealia for made-up items of the fictional world.
Despite the above criticism, I have decided to use the term realia (Latin plural neuter
from realis) in my study, and this choice is motivated by several arguments. First of all, it is a
relatively well-established term in Soviet/Russian translation theory and, as mentioned above,
not totally unfamiliar to the Western scholars.9 Secondly, realia typically refer to a more
9 See, for instance, the entry Realia in Handbook of Translation Studies (2011) vol. 2, or Dictionary of Translation
Studies (1997/2014).
45
specific class of lexis compared to such broad notions as culture-bound items, culturemes etc.,
which often imply all sorts of lexical items carrying any culture-specific connotations, including
anthroponyms, toponyms, names of works of art, idioms, allusions, puns, dialects etc. Moreover,
in the interpretation of this notion that I adhere to, realia do not cover lexical items referring to
fictional elements in the ST, with the exception of lexis originating in folklore or mythology of
a given language community. From this perspective, culture-specific elements include, but are
not limited to realia. And last but not least, preference is given to realia for purely pragmatic
reasons: it is a short term that is convenient to use as a key concept without having to introduce
an acronym (like ECR in Pedersen 2011 or CSI in Aixela 1996).
I will base my definition of realia mainly on Vlakhov and Florin’s interpretation.
According to it, realia are lexical items of the source language which denote objects,
phenomena and practices characteristic of one language community (its everyday life, social
and historical development) and absent in another; these lexical items hence have no accurate
correspondences in the target language and require a special treatment in translation (Vlakhov
and Florin 1986/2012). According to the scholars, examples of such words and expressions
include самовар, аршин, копейка, щи, квас, дача, декабрист, НЭП, военный коммунизм
etc. for Russian as a source language. In other words, Vlakhov and Florin’s definition of realia
is very similar to those given to culture-specific items, culturemes etc. by Western scholars, and
the realia’s key feature appears to be the culture-specificity of their referents. 10 At this point
we should return to Nord’s definition of culture specificity: a culture-specific phenomenon is
“one that is found to exist in a particular form or function in only one of the two cultures being
compared” (Nord 1997/2001: 34). If realia refer to unique (or rather, culture-specific)
objects/phenomena, the question arises: just how unique the referents should be in order to
qualify for cultural specificity? To what extent should the form or function of a given item be
different from that of a similar object/item in a target culture to be considered different enough?
An example below will illustrate this dilemma.
Let us consider the Russian word дача and attempt to establish whether it could be
regarded as a realia. In the Russian monolingual dictionary (Kuznetsov 2014), it is defined as
“country house used during summer holidays”. As a loanword, it is included in the Oxford
English Dictionary: “Dacha (datcha): a country house or cottage in Russia, typically used as a
second or holiday home”.11 The American Heritage Dictionary offers a similar definition: “a
10 It is noteworthy, however, that Vlakhov and Florin prefer the term language community to culture. 11 https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/dacha
46
vacation cottage or country villa in Russia or other parts of the former Soviet Union”.12 In
Fremmedord (The Norwegian Dictionary of Foreign Words), the word is presented with an odd
circular reference resulting in a loop (datsja see dacha; dacha see datsja), but the mere fact that
it is included in the dictionary is significant. In Store norske leksikon (Norwegian Encyclopedia),
datsja is defined as follows:
Datsja: russisk betegnelse for en sommerbolig, hytte eller en bolig på landet utenfor byene. Som bygning
kan datsja være alt fra en enkel hytte til et palass.13
(Dacha: Russian term for a summer residence, cottage or a country residence outside the city. As a
building, dacha can be anything from a simple cabin to a palace.)
As seen above, the Russian word дача (dacha, datsja) has already found its way into English
and Norwegian dictionaries, but still carries strong cultural connotations: in all of the definitions
there is a reference to Russia, and in practice the word is only used to describe summer residence
in Russia (and the former Soviet Union). The reason why the word was borrowed into other
languages through cross-cultural contacts is probably because it was perceived to describe a
concept significantly different from similar phenomena in Norwegian- or English-language
communities. Nevertheless, the word is far from being well assimilated in the English and
Norwegian lexicons. If we take a look at how дача is treated in various Norwegian and English
translations of Russian fiction, we will see a large variety of renderings alongside dacha and
datsja: country house, country villa, summer resort, summer villa, villa, villa out of town
(English), and hytte, hus, hus på landet, landsted, sommerhus, sommervilla, villa
(Norwegian).14 This variety of translation solutions is an indication that either translators do
not regard дача as a unique culture-specific concept or else they do, but opt for lexical items
that are more familiar to the TL audience. Should дача be regarded as culture-specific,
belonging to the category of realia and thus problematic in translation? What are the criteria for
a given word or collocation to be regarded as realia? The process of data retrieval for my
analysis depends on the answer to the latter question.
Despite the undeniable gaps between different cultures, it may be argued that the way
humans perceive and categorize the reality is fundamentally the same. If щи is unfamiliar in a
12 https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=dacha 13 https://snl.no/datsja 14 Examples are taken from the RuN Corpus
https://www.hf.uio.no/iln/tjenester/kunnskap/sprak/korpus/flersprakligekorpus/run/
47
given culture, some other kind of soup is most certainly known. If not with аршин, people are
measuring things with similar units of measurement. If Russians go to дача on vacations,
Norwegians go to hytte. Whether the difference between comparable phenomena in different
cultures may be viewed as significant by translators and translation scholars and thus worth
looking at, is always ultimately a judgement call. For instance, Marit Bjerkeng, the translator
of Ulitskaia’s Medeia i ee deti, makes the perceived difference between datsja and hytte explicit
in her paratextual explanation of the loanword:
Datsja — russisk “hytte”, ligner våre kolonihager, men ligger utenfor byen. Det viktigste med en datsja
har for alminnelige folk vært matauk, muligheten til å dyrke egne grønnsaker og egen frukt, men det er
også vanlig å ha en liten hytte til rekreasjonsformål. (Ulitskaia 2001: 149)
(Dacha — Russian “hytte”, similar to our community gardens, but located outside the city. To ordinary
people, the most important use of a dacha has been a source of extra food, allowing them to grow their
own vegetables and fruit, but it is also common to have a small cottage for recreational purposes.)
Cases when translators clearly demonstrate their awareness of the word’s culture-specificity
and hence problems associated with its translation are rare. More often than not, in product-
oriented translation research, the scholar has to conjecture whether something could be
examined as a culture-specific translation problem. His/her judgement may be supported by the
search in culturological dictionaries: for instance, дача is included, among others, in Russian
encyclopedic dictionaries devoted to daily life in the USSR (Belovinskii 2015 and Lebina 2006),
as well as linguocultural dictionaries with non-Russians as their target readership: Rossiia.
Bol’shoi lingvostranovedcheskii slovar’ (Russia. Comprehensive Linguocultural Dictionary)
(Borisenko et al. 2009), The Russian Word’s Worth (Berdy 2011), The Russian’s World
(Gerhart 2012). Moreover, dacha is a subject matter of a few culturological books and articles
in English (e.g. Caldwell 2011, Lovell 2003, Zavisca 2003, etc.).
To sum up, there are a number of indications that дача may be regarded as belonging
to the category of realia (in relation to Norwegian and English TLs):
1. The fact that it is registered in Norwegian and English dictionaries and
encyclopedias suggests that native speakers of Norwegian and English are to
some extent familiar with the concept of dacha and, since there is a demand for
borrowing the lexical item, find дача significantly different from similar second
houses in their respective cultures; most realia, however, are unlikely to be
included in TL dictionaries;
48
2. The word дача may be found in a few culturological dictionaries for students
and teachers of Russian language, history and culture as well as in English books
and articles devoted exclusively to the phenomenon (see above);
3. The fact that the word datsja is explained in the Norwegian novel’s paratext
suggests the translator’s awareness of the culture-specific nature of the concept;
4. Above all, my own introspection as a native speaker of Russian and someone
who is familiar with both SL culture and TL cultures allows me to argue that the
referent of дача is indeed significantly different in its form and function from
the similar phenomena in the TL cultures.
3.4 Realia as a culturally, historically and textually dynamic category
When speaking of culture specificity, Nord emphasizes that it is only a valid concept in relation
to specific cultures being compared. That is, a culture-specific phenomenon does not
necessarily exist only in that particular culture: it “might be observable in cultures other than
the two in question” (Nord 1997: 34). Similarly, Aixela (1996), when discussing the notion of
culture-specific items, criticizes the way it is often treated as having a static character. This
approach, according to him, is rooted in “the idea that there are permanent culture-specific items,
no matter which pair of cultures is involved” (Aixela 1996: 57). In line with this criticism, I
find it important to emphasize that in my study realia are regarded not as a universal, but as a
relative (culturally dynamic) category: i.e. the list of Russian realia might be more or less
constant in relation to most languages, yet every given lexical item can only have or lack a
direct correspondence in relation to a particular language. Certainly, a lot depends on the
cultural distance between the SL and the TL communities. It is natural then that an analysis of
realia should be performed in regard to specific language pairs — in my case, Russian‒English
and Russian‒Norwegian. The two language pairs may be of great interest for comparison as
Russian versus Norwegian/English belong to different groups within the Indo-European
language family and, despite frequent cultural interactions, relate to rather different cultures.
Aixela (1996), Leppihalme (2011), Vlakhov and Florin (1986/2012) point to one more
dynamic aspect of realia — namely, the fact that cross-cultural and cross-linguistic relations
change over time. As a result, lexical items may acquire or lose the realia status
because “...objects, habits or values once restricted to one community come to be shared by
others” (Aixela 1996: 58). Although it is not always easy to identify whether previously “alien”
49
lexical items have been well assimilated in the receiving language and thus can no longer be
considered translation-resistant, it is important to bear in mind the diachronic aspect. Lexis
identified as realia today, may no longer be regarded as such in the future (more on this issue
in Section 5.2).
The last dynamic aspect of culture-specific items that Aixela discusses in his article is
their textual function. He argues that culture-specific items are only so “in concrete textual
situations” (Aixela 1996: 58). According to him, a mention of April may be a neutral reference
in one text and hence not cause a translation problem, whereas in another text it may be charged
with cultural connotations: for instance, April viewed as the most lyrical month of the year in
the SC may carry quite different connotations in other cultures. Similarly, if we return to our
example with дача, it will become clear that not all its semantic features are equally important
in all contexts: sometimes it is included in the text primarily as “a second house in the
countryside”, other times its other semantic component — “providing extra food from the
vegetable garden” — becomes more relevant; one might imagine a description of дача as a
place that lacks “conveniences” or, on the contrary, as a luxury possession since not all Russian
families can afford buying a dacha house. Thus, whereas in one context дача rendered as hytte
in Norwegian or summer cottage in English could be sufficient, in another utterance it may be
regarded as a loss of cultural connotations. Put another way: words do not have a fixed meaning
but acquire meaning through a specific context (Nida 1964) as was discussed in the Section 2.2
on Equivalence. That said, if one attempts to carry out a quantitative study, it seems unrealistic
to analyze every single occurrence of realia in its specific context trying to identify what
semantic features are actualized. Therefore, I have to approach realia as though they had a fixed
meaning. In other words, when trying to identify realia in an ST, I focus on whether a lexical
item lacks a formal correspondence in the TL rather than a sufficient textual equivalent (in
Catford’s terms). However, in the qualitative part of my research, I discuss a number of realia
in their specific contexts and take a closer look at how different translation solutions may be
contextually motivated.
3.5 Realia as terminological lexis
Emphasizing realia’s terminological character, the Russian linguist Aleksandr D. Shveitser
used the hybrid notion of термин-реалия (“term-realia”) in his works (e.g. Shveitser 1973:
50
253). Similarly, Vlakhov and Florin (1980: 8) find it important to draw attention to the fact that
realia are closely related to terminological vocabulary. They point out that, unlike the majority
of lexical items, which normally have multiple related meanings, both terms and realia denote
precisely defined concepts and are rarely polysemic. In their ideal form, terms are unambiguous
words (or fixed expressions), which are deprived of connotations, lack synonyms and actualize
almost the same meaning in all contexts. A large number of them refer to a specific historical
period (Vlakhov and Florin 1986/2012: 19). In contrast, realia do carry national/historical
connotations, may be used in a figurative meaning, and more often than not their role in a text
is not restricted to the nominative function. However, the key similarity remains: realia
resemble terms in that they have highly specific semantic content.
Speaking of realia’s terminological nature, one might say that the more specific the
word’s meaning, the better the chance that it may lack a precise counterpart in another language,
thus becoming realia. The difference between general lexis and realia may be illustrated by
comparing the two words both designating a place for human habitation — дом and чум.
Bol’shoi tolkovyi slovar’ (Kuznetsov 2014) provides five related meanings for the word дом,
ranging from a type of building and an institution to the metonymic meaning of the people
living in a house (a household) and even a dynasty. Likewise, the online Oxford Dictionary lists
seven meanings of the word house, and each of them is further divided into several more
specific semantic subgroups. By contrast, the word чум in Kuznetsov’s dictionary has only one
meaning, namely “переносное жилище кочевников-оленеводов в виде конического остова
из шестов, покрытого оленьими шкурами (зимой), берестой или корой (летом)” — that is,
“portable dwelling of nomadic herders in the form of a conical core made of poles and covered
with reindeer skins (in winter), birch bark or other type of bark (in summer)”. The unique, well-
defined concept designated by the word чум makes it possible:
1. to identify this word in the original as a realia potentially problematic for
translators (i.e. to assume that, since the referent of чум is too specific and
unlikely to be known in the target culture, a readily available counterpart in the
TL might be missing),
2. to establish what sort of shift has occurred in the TT rendition of it.
Having largely rejected the controversial notion of equivalence and hence the
description of realia as a case of lexical non-equivalence, particularly common in the
Soviet/Russian translation theory, I define realia through Catford’s concept of formal
correspondence: realia lack formal correspondence in the TL, i.e. the TL does not offer a
51
concise way of expressing the same denotative (at times also connotative) meaning as that of
the out-of-context SL lexical item. For this reason, whenever realia are encountered, translators
often resort to round-about, non-standard solutions which provide exceptionally interesting
material for analysis. For instance, having to translate the above-mentioned чум, a Norwegian
translator may render it with a functional analogue known to the Norwegian reader — a Sami
type of hut gamme:
RU ST: Оставим чумы и нелюбовь зиме! (MS)
NO TT: La oss forlate disse gammene og dette hatet til vinteren!
Despite the similarities between realia and terms, it is important to remember that when realia
occur in fictional texts, they are often rendered imprecisely in TTs, as some of their semantic
features may be irrelevant in a specific context (or perceived as such by the translator).
3.6 My definition of realia As an attempt to incorporate some of the above ideas into my interpretation of realia, I propose
the following definition:
Realia are always defined for a specific language pair (SL–TL). These are lexical items
of the source language which refer to objects and phenomena in the SL community that
are perceived (by translators or translation scholars) to be significantly different from
comparable objects and phenomena in the TL community. As a result, realia have no
formal correspondence in the TL at a given point in time and are hence translation-
resistant in many contexts.
My definition certainly contains a subjective evaluative aspect expressed in the words
“perceived by translators or translation scholars”. In my view, any definition of realia explicitly
or implicitly would involve a similar reservation since the boundaries of this lexical category
are not clear-cut. However, as suggested above, apart from the scholar’s introspection, there are
other indications that a word or a fixed expression may be classified as realia:
1. Instead of completely lacking a formal correspondent, the TL may borrow an ST
lexical item and include it in its monolingual dictionaries, but this loanword
would be a) of an extremely low frequency, b) always associated with the SC
and c) still quite unknown to a great number of TL speakers (as in the above
example of dacha/datsja).
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2. The SL lexical item is treated descriptively in SL–TL bilingual dictionaries
(description is sometimes coupled with transliteration). Here is, for instance,
how окрошка is presented in the Russian–English and Russian–Norwegian
dictionaries:
окрошка: okroshka (a cold kvass soup with chopped vegetables (especially fresh cucumbers,
spring/green onions, and cooked potatoes), hard-boiled eggs, and meat or sausage).15
окрошка: (суп) suppe laget av kvas (se квас), grønnsaker og kjøtt [skinke]; serveres kald
(Berkov 2011: 599).
(soup made of kvas (see квас), vegetables and meat [ham]; served cold)
3. The SL lexical item is included in SL culturological dictionaries and
encyclopaedias with students and teachers of the SL as their target audience.
4. The SL lexical item is given an explanation in the TT paratext.
3.7 The scope of realia As mentioned above, concepts like culture-specific items, culture-bound problems, culturemes,
extralinguistic cultural references and the like typically cover all sorts of culture-related
translation problems. For instance, Aixela divides culture-specific items into two main groups:
“proper nouns” and “common expressions”, with the latter covering “the world of objects,
institutions, habits and opinions restricted to each culture” (Aixela 1996: 59). Similarly,
Pedersen (2011) includes proper nouns in his discussion of “extralinguistic cultural references”.
The notion realia, in contrast, is usually restricted to common nouns/expressions only
(Alexeeva 2007, Kostomarov and Vereshchagin 2005, Vlakhov and Florin 1986/2012).
However, a broad understanding of realia is also encountered in the literature: e.g. in
Vinogradov’s classification (1978), proper nouns and allusions are also viewed as realia.
Newmark, making a distinction between “cultural terms”, “proper names” and “institutional
names”, explains his decision in the following way:
The basic distinction between proper names and cultural terms is that while both refer to persons, objects
or processes peculiar to a single ethnic community, the former have singular references, while the latter
refer to classes of entities.
(Newmark 1981: 70)
15 https://premium.oxforddictionaries.com/translate/russian-english/%D0%BE%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%88%D0%BA%D0%B0?searchDictCode=english-russian
53
In my view, although proper nouns (names of characters, historical figures, toponyms etc.) are
far from being a problem-free object of translation, particularly in children’s literature,16 the
number of translation procedures applied to proper nouns is often limited due to the above-
mentioned singular reference. They are thus better treated as a separate category in a translation
analysis. Burak, while leaving out regular proper names from his interpretation of realia, does
not exclude what he refers to as “talking names”, i.e. “names that have preserved some
denotative, metaphorical, or emotional connotations evoking special associations in the minds
of the speakers of a given ethnic and/or sociocultural community” (Burak 2013: 99). This type
of names is surely more interesting to analyze than conventional names but lies outside the
scope of the present study.
Another example of a broad interpretation of realia is Burak’s treatment of skaz
narrative (e.g. Karataev’s story in Tolstoy’s War and Peace) as a “whole-text realium”17 — “a
special type of realium operating at the level of text” (Burak 2013: 55). Whether it is justified
or not to regard a certain type of stylistically marked narrative as a realia item is ultimately a
matter of perspective, but I am afraid this might make the concept of realia all the more vague
and difficult to define.
The same concerns “situational realia” described by Vlakhov and Florin (1986/2012).
According to them, situational realia refer to a culture-specific situation rather than an object
or a phenomenon in the SC. These “situations” in the ST, although perfectly translatable on the
word level, would require an additional explanation to be understood correctly by the TT reader.
An example from my data may illustrate this concept:
RU ST: Сзади на юбке пристала белая нитка, и молодой учитель поймал себя на том, что вдруг
захотелось осторожно снять эту нитку и намотать на палец: Алексей, Борис, Виктор… (MS)
NO TT: Det hadde festet seg en hvit trådstump bak på skjørtet hennes, og den unge læreren grep seg selv
i å tenke at det skulle vært morsomt å plukke denne tråden forsiktig løs og telle på den med fingrene: A,
B, C …
EN TT: A white thread had stuck to the back of her skirt, and the young teacher caught himself realizing
he had a sudden urge to pluck that thread, cautiously, and wrap it around his finger: Alexei, Boris, Cyrill…
16 See, for instance, the strongly domesticated Russian translation of the Norwegian children’s book Johannes Jensen føler seg annerledes by Henrik Hovland — Иван Иванович не такой, как все. 17 In his monograph, Burak (2013) uses “realium” as a singular form of “realia”. However, “realium” is, in fact, the Genitive masculine plural of the adjective “realis”. “Realia”, in turn, is neuter plural of “realis” and became a noun through nominalization. I will avoid using “realium” as a singular form and use “realia” for both singulars and plurals alternating it with such terms like “realia word/expression” or “realia lexical item”.
54
For an average Norwegian- or English-speaking reader, it would not be clear why the young
teacher suddenly has the urge to pluck the thread and wrap it around his finger while listing the
letters of the alphabet or male names. This is a reference to the well-known Russian superstition
according to which, if a loose thread is found attached to the clothes of an unmarried girl, she
can wrap it around her finger to find out the first letter of her future husband’s name. Each turn
corresponds to a letter of the alphabet. The excerpt above might be interpreted as the young
teacher having some sort of (romantic) interest in his female colleague and possibly wondering
if his name would come up as a result of this “wrapping the thread” ritual. Although both
translators have slightly adapted the listing of the names (in English the letters of the Latin
alphabet are used, and in Norwegian the third male name is changed according to the Latin
alphabet), the actual situation may still remain cryptic to the TT readers.
“Situational realia” and other sorts of allusions, references to historical figures and
artworks, “talking names” and culture-specific types of narratives are surely interesting to
investigate in translation. However, in the present work I stick to the narrow understanding of
realia which covers only common nouns and fixed expressions with one exception: I include
one class of proper names into the category of realia — namely, lexical items that Newmark
refers to as “national institutional terms” (Newmark 1981: 70). These realia (e.g.
Временное правительство, ВТО, Госиздат, Народный дом, КПСС, Государственная
Дума, кадетский корпус), although often having a singular reference, are motivated lexical
items — that is, unlike in the case of many other proper names, their meaning is still easy to
deduce from the words they consist of. The motivated nature of institutional names yields a
variety of renderings in translation, from Functional Substitution and different types of
Explicitation to Calques and Retention (with or without an extratextual comment). This makes
names of culture-specific institutions interesting for investigation in terms of domestication and
foreignization.
3.8 Word classes covered by realia Typically, realia are nouns or noun phrases (fixed expressions). These most often refer to
concrete material objects or people (e.g. камзол, квас, коммуналка, декабрист), but
occasionally also to more abstract phenomena (e.g. самиздат, толстовство,
55
коллективизация, военный коммунизм, Смутное время). Here is an example of a realia noun
(in this case, referring to an abstract phenomenon):
RU ST: – А что думать? – удивился он. – Сегодня у нас коллективизация, завтра еще что-нибудь
будет. (LUM)
NO TT: “Tenke på det? Hvordan det?” Han ble forbauset. “I dag har vi kollektiviseringen, i morgen
dukker det opp noe annet.”
EN TT: “What is there to think about?” he asked in surprise. “Today we have collectivization of
agriculture, tomorrow there will be something else.”
In both Norwegian and English TTs, the verbal noun коллективизация describing a socio-
economical process enforced in the Soviet Union is rendered with nouns of similar structure —
kollektivisering and collectivization. A specifying noun is added in English to better convey the
meaning of the realia (collectivization of agriculture).
Realia may also be expressed by adjectives derived from realia nouns:
RU ST: А Маша тащила на кухню старый том с лапшой закладок или самиздатскую брошюру,
разворачивала на нужном месте (…). (LUM)
NO TT: Masja på sin side kunne komme trekkende inn på kjøkkenet med en eller annen gammel bok
med et virvar av bokmerker i eller en illegal brosjyre og brette den ut på rett sted (…).
EN TT: Or Masha would lug an old volume into the kitchen with so many bookmarks in it they looked
like noodles, or a samizdat brochure and slew it around at the right place and say (…).
In the above example, the adjective самиздатский derived from the realia noun самиздат is
rendered in different ways in the two TTs: in Norwegian, it is translated by the descriptive
adjective illegal conveying an essential semantic feature of самиздат; in English, on the other
hand, we encounter a noun premodifier, which retains the original realia — samizdat.
As long as realia adjectives preserve a clear connection with the nouns they derive from,
it is easy to classify them as realia (e.g. самиздатский, дачный, областной, унтер-
офицерский, таёжный, караимский). However, when they start to be used in a figurative
sense and describe qualities rather than attribution or possession, they partly or completely lose
their national/historical color and end up in the grey zone between realia and common lexis (e.g.
пудовый, саженный, уездный, копеечный). In order to decide whether to include such “grey
zone” adjectives in my study, I examined if these are ever interpreted literally by translators.
Below is one example found in my data:
RU ST: Генерал-губернатор с высоты своего саженного роста осмотрел зал и решительно
направился туда, где в одиночестве сидел мистер Карр. (BA)
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NO TT: Fra toppen av sin to meter høye skikkelse tok generalguvernøren et overblikk over salen, og
bega seg så besluttsomt i retning av Mr. Carr.
EN TT: The governor general glanced round the hall from his height of almost two metres and set off
resolutely towards the spot where Mr Carr was sitting alone.
Here the adjective саженный can be said to take on a colloquial non-literal sense — namely,
“very big, huge”. With this meaning actualized, the collocation саженного роста is
particularly common. However, both translators interpret it rather literally: they convert
сажень into meters. At the same time, one may wonder if the author of the ST does in fact use
this adjective in its literal sense: after all, the story takes place in the 19th century, and archaic
units of measurement, including сажень, are encountered elsewhere in the novel. This example
shows that, on the one hand, it is not always easy to distinguish between literal and not-literal
sense of a realia and that, on the other hand, a realia used in its figurative sense may be
interpreted in a literal sense by the translator. I maintain, thus, that this group of realia is well
worthy of investigation.
In very rare cases, realia can be verbs. Below is an interesting illustration of a realia
verb found in the novel Venerin volos by Mikhail Shishkin:
RU ST: В церковь он ходил редко, а на кладбище — почти никогда. Его бесило, что люди идут
поздравлять покойников с Пасхой, христосуются с крестом, кормят умерших зарытыми в землю
яйцами, оставляют на могиле блины, льют на землю водку. (MS)
NO TT: Det var sjelden han gikk i kirken, og på kirkegården gikk han nesten aldri. Han raste over den
skikken at folk går for å hilse de døde i påsken, at de sier “Kristus er oppstanden” til et stenkors, at de
mater de døde som ligger nedgravet i jorden med egg og setter pannekaker igjen på graven, at de heller
vodka på graven.
EN TT: He rarely went to church and almost never to the cemetery. It enraged him that people went to
wish the dead a happy Easter, exchange triple kisses with the cross, feed eggs to the dead buried in the
ground, leave blini on the grave, and pour vodka on the ground.
Христосоваться is a Russian verb describing a salutation ritual practiced by Orthodox
Christians at Easter: people kiss each other three times and say: “Christ is risen!” — “He is
truly risen”. Quite interestingly, the TTs, though both rendering the Russian verb with a
paraphrasing verb phrase, put emphasis on different actions within this Easter ritual: the
Norwegian TT focuses on the verbal exchange whereas the English TT explicates the triple
kissing.
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As stated above, realia may be fixed expressions. On rare occasions, we also encounter
“realia within realia” — when a realia noun/phrase is part of another realia phrase and may be
viewed as two distinct realia:
RU ST: Отправной точкой послужили труды товарища Ленина, предлагаемые к обязательному
чтению по курсу истории КПСС. (LUM)
NO TT: Utgangspunktet var kamerat Lenins verker, som ble servert som obligatorisk pensum på kurset
i Det sovjetiske kommunistpartiets historie.
EN TT: He started with the works of Comrade Lenin, compulsory reading for the course on the history
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Here we may regard both курс истории КПСС (an obligatory subject in Soviet higher
education institutions) and the acronym КПСС as two distinct realia. Both of them are fixed
expressions rendered with calques in the TTs, and the acronym is spelled out. Other examples
include пионерский галстук where пионер may be viewed as a separate realia; кирзовые
сапоги where the name of the material кирза may also be regarded as a realia. When such cases
are encountered, I include only the higher-rank realia (phrases) into my statistical calculations
without breaking them down.
In sum, realia may be nouns, adjectives, verbs and fixed expressions, but the two most
typical word classes identified in my data are nouns and noun phrases.
3.9 Classification of realia In my analysis, I will draw on Vlakhov and Florin’s typological framework, as they provide
some of the most detailed classifications of realia. In their monograph, Neperevodimoe v
perevode (The Untranslatable in Translation), Vlakhov and Florin (1980, 1986/2012) attempt
to classify realia in a number of ways according to three specific criteria and arrive at the
following typologies:
1. thematic typology;
2. local typology;
3. temporal typology.
Before discussing the fairly elaborate thematic typology, I would like to consider the latter two
classifications, as they require refinement and raise a number of important issues.
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3.9.1 Local typology Vlakhov and Florin’s local typology of realia is quite controversial. Confusion arises from the
fact that occasionally they seem to regard realia as an absolute category — that is, a category
that may be examined in a monolingual context, with no regard to translation. Viewed from this
angle, realia cease to be instances of lexical gaps and become merely a more or less stable
thematic class within the lexicon of a particular language. That being said, it might be useful to
look into their classification, as this may help me to better define the boundaries of realia as a
concept as well as to develop a new typology that may give some insight into how certain types
of realia are linked to specific translation procedures.
Vlakhov and Florin (1986/2012: 61) emphasize that the term “local typology” is
somewhat arbitrary because realia are grouped by the scholars into specific categories not
strictly on the local basis, but rather according to the two inextricably intertwined criteria:
• national origin of the realia’s referent;
• language pair involved.
The scholars then offer two types of classification — with regard to one language and with
regard to two languages (ibid: 61–69):
A. With regard to one language:
1) original (the language’s own realia);
2) foreign (realia alien to this particular language).
These categories are rather ambiguous as they suggest a discussion of realia not as a translation
problem, but as a lexical class within one particular language where various original and
borrowed culture-specific words coexist. Thus, to illustrate a language’s own realia, Vlakhov
and Florin use самовар, боярин, совет, комсомолец as examples of Russian original realia,
and ale and heath ― as English realia (ibid: 62). The scholars point out that it might be difficult
to recognize realia that are part of one’s own culture in a text. However, it is not quite clear
when and why the issue of recognition might arise unless it is translation we are concerned with.
In case of translation, however, whether a translator works from or into his/her mother tongue,
realia are not particularly difficult to recognize, as they lack readily available counterparts in
the TL.
When it comes to the second category — realia alien to a particular language — Vlakhov
and Florin essentially discuss loanwords that are not fully assimilated in a given language and
retain some of their exotic touch: e.g. брынза and бизнес for Russian, and sputnik for many
59
European languages. Apart from the obvious update that бизнес has now become an unmarked
frequent word in Russian and is certainly not regarded as alien, I would like to point out that an
analysis of loanwords in a specific language is not particularly relevant to a study of realia in
translation unless loanwords are examined as a translation solution (e.g. when a Russian word
for various reasons is borrowed into Norwegian in a translation).
My main argument for dismissing the distinction between original and foreign realia
may be summarized as such: in the present study, realia are regarded as a relative rather than
an absolute category, which presents a theoretical interest in translation studies only when
analyzed comparatively in a given pair of TL and SL. Denoting unique objects of a particular
culture, realia do indeed constitute a more or less stable lexical group in relation to most
languages — e.g. the list of Russian realia lacking direct counterparts in a TL would be virtually
the same for a great number of languages. However, in translation studies, examining this lexis
makes most sense in relation to specific languages.
Of greater importance to translation studies (as well as lexicography and contrastive
linguistics) is the second part of Vlakhov and Florin’s local typology where they classify realia
in respect to language pairs by adopting Berkov’s terminology (Berkov 1973: 113):
B. With regard to a language pair:
1) external realia;
2) internal realia.
External realia are, according to the scholars, equally alien to both languages involved. Vlakhov
and Florin give the example of fjord which would be external for the language pair of English
and Russian, but internal for Norwegian–Russian translations. Internal realia are thus those that
belong to one of the languages in a given language pair and foreign to the other one, more
precisely — to the TL (Vlakhov and Florin 1986/2012: 63). It is this type of realia that is the
primary focus of my study — namely, Russian realia (SL), which are foreign to both Norwegian
(TL) and English (TL). External realia, on the other hand, which are equally foreign to Russian,
Norwegian and English (for instance, French realia), will not be considered.
However, a crucial question arises: what can qualify as Russian realia? Is it only native
Russian/Slavic words that should be given consideration? In this case, should we ignore names
for numerous Russian titles used in the Russian Empire, many of which were directly borrowed
or calqued from German and were likewise used in Denmark and Sweden? Or words of French
origin for types of food and clothes, which were widespread in 19th century Russia? Should we
consider various Tatar, Caucasian or Central Asian realia (Uzbek, Tajik, etc.) which are
60
encountered in Ulitskaia’s Medeia i ee deti and which were familiar to most people across the
Soviet Union? Should these words be excluded from the study because they are not Russian by
origin? In other words, where to draw the line between clearly external realia — words which
are foreign to both SL and TL — on the one hand and loanwords that have been culturally
assimilated in the Russian language and culture to the extent that they have become internal
realia, on the other hand? It is an important issue, given that, in my study, I am concerned
exclusively with the latter category ― that is, internal realia. My answer to this rather difficult
question will therefore directly affect my data selection and statistical calculations.
A possible solution to this problem is as follows: if we deal with words brought to the
Russian vocabulary through cultures of various minorities that are or were indigenous to Russia,
the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union, they should be regarded as internal realia (e.g.
шашлык, аул, чебурек, бурка, балык, папаха, кумыс), because the referents of these realia
are familiar to the majority of the Russian-language community. Likewise, words borrowed
from French, German etc. (often obsolete lexis) which designate common phenomena in
Russian life or did so in the past and are little known in English- and Norwegian-language
communities are considered internal realia (obsolete lexical items such as камер-паж, пулярки,
тужурка, китель, преферанс). As for Russian/German titles which had been also adopted by
the Danish and Swedish states and through them became part of the Norwegian lexicon, it is
difficult to determine their status in relation to realia because, despite looking like near
equivalents, they differ in their denotative meaning: e.g. the specific hierarchical position of
камер-юнкер or камергер in the old Russian Table of Ranks and the status associated with
these titles are to some extent different from those of kammerjunker and kammerherre in
Scandinavian countries. This type of Russian lexis is viewed as realia in the present study
because it denotes ranks and titles that are part of the very specific national rank system.
In contrast, internal realia which belong not to the SL, but to the TL (e.g. тролль in
Russian–Norwegian translations or виски, лорд in Russian–English ones) will be disregarded
as they are rather unproblematic in terms of translation:18
RU ST: Глыбы были брошены беспорядочно, как будто здесь была когда-то игровая площадка
детенышей троллей. (LUM)
NO TT: Steinblokkene var slengt skjødesløst utover, som om det en gang hadde vært en lekeplass for
trollunger her.
RU ST: Фандорин огляделся, взял со стола бутылку, в которой плескалась бурая жидкость —
кажется, пресловутое виски, которым некогда потчевал меня батлер. (BA)
18 Pym (2014a: 16) proposes a witty term for these cases — “loans returning to the lender”.
61
EN TT: Fandorin looked around and picked up a bottle with brown liquid splashing about in it off the
table. I thought it must be the notorious whisky with which the English butler had once regaled me.
In the latter example, the “foreignness” of the word батлер for the Russian language is
compensated in the TT by the addition — English. However, in most cases this word is simply
rendered as butler in the English translation of Akunin’s Koronatsiia. Being aware that the
exotic touch it had in the Russian text is inevitably lost as a result of being translated back to
its original language, the translator is unlikely to have difficulty finding the appropriate solution
in such cases.
In an attempt to reduce the ambiguity of the internal vs. external opposition, Vlakhov
and Florin propose another local typology of realia — namely, they distinguish between
national, regional and international realia (Vlakhov and Florin 1986/2012: 63–66).
According to the scholars, national realia denote objects and phenomena belonging to
one particular nation19 and being foreign to people outside of the given country. They also state
that most realia are of this kind, so the term “national realia” may sound almost redundant.
However, as Vlakhov and Florin point out, there are numerous exceptions. While words like
опричник, дьяк, сельпо, щи have a clear national identity, there are plenty of other words —
regional realia — which, as the scholars put it, “have crossed the borders of a particular country”
(ibid: 64) and entered other language communities, not necessarily neighboring ones, thus
getting spread across many countries, often along with their referents. These words become at
home in the lexicon of several languages. The issue of regional realia is to some extent covered
in the discussion of what qualifies as internal realia. It has been indicated that setting clear
boundaries is not easy in this case because these depend on how well a specific word is
integrated in the recipient language, which is a difficult issue in itself.
Likewise, Kostomarov and Vereshchagin group regional realia under a separate
category in their classification — “words of non-Russian origin, so-called Turcisms,
Mongolisms, Ukrainisms, etc.” (Kostomarov and Vereshchagin 2005: 94). According to them,
this lexis may be called “double cases of non-equivalence”: first, they lacked counterparts in
Russian and hence were borrowed into Russian from various languages, and today they lack
equivalents when being transferred from Russian to other languages (ibid: 94). As for numerous
words designating Soviet phenomena, unlike Kostomarov and Vereshchagin who separate them
from other types of realia (“Sovietisms” in their terminology), Vlakhov and Florin classify them
as regional realia, since they were widely used not only in the USSR but also in other countries
19 I find the concept of “nation” in this context rather problematic, as realia have a strong link to specific language communities rather than nations.
62
of the Eastern Bloc: райсовет, ударник, колхоз, etc. However, I believe, they may also be
viewed as simply Russian realia because they originated in the Russian language and because,
being encountered in Russian novels, they naturally evoke associations with Russia and Soviet
Union rather than the whole Eastern Bloc.
As far as international realia are concerned, Vlakhov and Florin emphasize two aspects
of these: 1) they feature in the lexicon of a great number of languages; and 2) at the same time,
they retain some of their original national color (Vlakhov and Florin 1986/2012: 65–66).
Examples of Russian “international realia” might include: водка, царь, самовар, Совет, пирог,
борщ, большевик, степь, рубль, копейка, интеллигенция. As these words adjust to the
phonetic, orthographic and grammatical rules of a recipient language, they may take on slightly
different forms in different languages: English Soviet is Sovjet (n) in Norwegian, borsch —
borsjtsj (m), bolshevik — bolsjevik (m), copeck — kopek (m), etc. By and large, although these
realia were borrowed into English and Norwegian a long time ago and are now fully assimilated
in these languages as well as included in monolingual dictionaries, they do retain some its
original exoticism. It seems, regardless of how common these words become across many
countries, vodka, samovar, tsar, pirog, etc. invariably evoke associations with Russia, and their
Russian origin is normally indicated in English and Norwegian dictionaries:
NO: samovar m1 (russ ‘selvkoker’) apparat til å koke tevann i, russisk tekjele.20
EN: samovar noun a highly decorated tea urn used in Russia. Origin: Russian, literally ‘self-boiler’.21
Exotic touch notwithstanding, what Vlakhov and Florin refer to as international realia differ
from both national and regional realia in one crucial way: strictly speaking, they do have
dictionary counterparts since they have already found their way to the TL monolingual
dictionaries as loanwords. The question is how well they are assimilated in a specific language
and hence to what extent they are expected to be recognizable by the target reader. I will come
back to this issue in the discussion of temporal classifications as well as debate the possibility
of including such words in my study in Section 5.2.
Apart from national, regional and international realia, Vlakhov and Florin (1986/2012:
66–69) identify two more groups: local realia (dialect and sociolect words that have the key
features of realia) and microrealia (an even narrower category — realia that are only used in a
20 http://www.nob-ordbok.uio.no/ 21 https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/samovar
63
particular city, town or village). In practice, it is not as easy to distinguish between national and
local realia. The following example may serve to illustrate this point:
RU ST: Ты толкнул человека, тот пролил баланду. (MS)
NO TT: Så kommer du til å dytte en fyr, så han søler ut det skvipet han har i skålen.
EN TT: You push someone and he spills his gruel.
The Russian word баланда denotes either summer Mordovian soup made of milk and saltbush22
or, far more frequently, thin, unsavory soup served in a labour camp, prison or in the army.23
The word in the above sentence is used in this latter meaning, as the scene takes place in a
prison. The Norwegian word used to render it is skvip (-et) which designates “tynn, dårlig
drikk”24 (a thin, bad drink), whereas the English gruel is “a thin liquid food of oatmeal or other
meal boiled in milk or water”.25 The translation procedure involved in both cases might be
identified as Functional Substitution, or “functional analogue” in Vlakhov and Florin’s
terminology. It is noteworthy that, while the Norwegian counterpart covers the denotative
meaning of баланда somewhat less precisely than the English one (it refers, after all, primarily
to drinks and is perhaps closer to the Russian пойло rather than баланда), it successfully
conveys the connotative meaning (something bad, tasteless, thin).
The issue that is important to consider here is how to classify words like баланда.
Strictly speaking, баланда is a prison slang word, however it has become so common that it
acquired both a broader meaning used in everyday speech (any thin unsavory broth) and a
figurative meaning developed based on its connotations (idle pointless talk, jabber). 26
Incidentally, a similar figurative meaning can be attributed to the Norwegian skvip —
something hollow, lacking content.27 One possible way to resolve the ambiguity of such lexical
items might be as follows: dialect and sociolect words, which are for various reasons familiar
to most people in a given SL community, could be treated as national realia (баланда, шизо)
as they are on the verge of becoming — or already are — part of the national lexicon. On the
other hand, slang words which are mostly known to a particular population group, such as
громак, опущенный, кошкин дом (Shishkin, Venerin volos), could be disregarded. Being well
22 Kulinarnyi slovar’ (Pokhlebkin 2005). 23 Bol’shoi tolkovyi slovar’ russkogo iazyka (Kuznetsov 2014). 24 http://www.nob-ordbok.uio.no/ 25 https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/gruel 26 Bol’shoi tolkovyi slovar’ russkogo iazyka (Kuznetsov 2014). 27 http://www.nob-ordbok.uio.no/
64
aware of the rather fuzzy borderline between these two categories, I will nevertheless try to
select my data according to this principle. This implies that a large number of lexical items,
which are termed local realia and microrealia by Vlakhov and Florin and which have restricted
usage, will be excluded from my study.
The discussion of Vlakhov and Florin’s local typologies reveals the complexity and
ambiguity of the realia concept, which makes it a challenging research object. With regard to
translation though, it is perhaps not very important whether realia are local, national or regional.
In most cases, as they are equally unfamiliar to the target audience (with the exception of
international realia), the translator is likely to choose a solution that would make the meaning
of these words explicit unless he/she consciously decides to go for a more foreignizing solution.
However, if a Western translator deals with realia that originate in a European language (like
the aforementioned German/Russian ranks), translation solutions may be different, as
Norwegian or English readers might be able to infer the meaning of transliterated realia if these
have Germanic or Latin roots. The below typology of realia by origin, simplistic as it is, might
nevertheless account for the choice of translation procedures in Russian–Norwegian and
Russian–English translations:
1. realia of Western origin — i.e. all Russian realia that were originally borrowed from
European languages (камер-паж, ефрейтор, буфетчик, крюшон, гардемарин, губерния,
жандармерия, гимназистка, etc.);
2. realia of non-Western origin — realia of Slavic, Tartar, Uzbek and other origin
(вареники, чебуреки, шашлыки, атаман, балаган, камзол, толстовка, аул, черкеска,
нагайка, мыза, чубук, etc.);
3. hybrid realia of mixed origin — this class covers primarily fixed expressions in
which the two above types coexist (коллежский советник, статский советник,
гренадерский поручик, губернское жандармское управление, камер-казак, придворный
кавалер, etc.).
3.9.2 Temporal typology According to the temporal criterion, Vlakhov and Florin (1986/2012: 69) distinguish between
two large groups of realia:
1) modern;
2) historical.
65
The scholars do not specify where to draw the line between these two classes, but from their
further discussion of realia it becomes clear that “historical” covers all realia designating objects
and phenomena, which date back to the time before the October Revolution. Without making
an explicit attempt to lay down a more detailed classification, the authors nevertheless indicate
that Russian realia might belong to different epochs of Russian history: the pre-revolutionary
years (губерния, уезд), the time of Ivan the Terrible (опричник, земщина), early Soviet times
(раскулачивание, нэпман), etc. Both their general temporal classification and further
distinction between various epochs are not very specific. The scholars, for instance, do not
comment on cases in which realia “travel through time” — that is, while dating back to the
early history of Russia, they are still widely used in modern language (e.g. валенки, студень,
полушубок, масленица). Moreover, it is not quite clear what implications their typology has
for translation strategies.
Kostomarov and Vereshchagin (2005) offer a rather mixed general classification of
realia. From the very beginning, they acknowledge that it is not based on one clear criterion. It
is nevertheless obvious that three out of their seven categories are defined by the temporal
parameter (2005: 80–92):
1. демократизмы (democratic realia) — words and fixed expressions denoting
concepts which emerged (and partly retrieved from the passive vocabulary) due to the political
regime change in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union and, in some cases, related to
the criticism of the old Soviet system: e.g. Дума, губернатор, ближнее и дальнее зарубежье,
антисоветчик, ваучер, застой, новые русские, олигархи, совок, etc.
2. советизмы (Soviet realia) — words expressing concepts, which emerged as a result
of the Great October Revolution of 1917: e.g. агитпункт, ударник, пятилетка, райком,
сельсовет, ноябрьские праздники, исполком, колхоз, партсобрание, субботник, рабфак,
ЗАГС, etc. It is important to note that, since the Soviet era is now in the past, Kostomarov and
Vereshchagin treat these realia more like historical ones in contrast to Vlakhov and Florin who
were writing their book in late Soviet times and regarded Soviet realia as modern.
3. историзмы (historical realia) — obsolete words denoting objects and phenomena of
previous historical periods. Examples include сажень, аршин, лапти, кафтан, армяк, уезд,
волость, оброк, крепостной, боярин, городовой, etc. By “previous historical periods” the
scholars presumably mean not only various pre-revolutionary epochs, but also the Soviet era.
Given the lack of one common criterion for the classification in question, it is perhaps not very
surprising that, having outlined the category of Soviet realia, Kostomarov and Vereshchagin
66
include, among other words, examples of Soviet realia in their discussion of historical realia
(such as военный коммунизм, нэп, кулак, коллективизация). It would have been
unproblematic if the scholars had indicated some sort of hierarchical relations between Soviet
and historical realia (that is, implying that Soviet realia are a type of historical realia), but they
do not elaborate on this issue.
Apart from that, Kostomarov and Vereshchagin (2005: 87–88) identify a rather vague
group of realia, which they refer to as “names of objects and phenomena of traditional life”.
They further give numerous examples of types of clothing, food, drink, games, musical
instruments, song, dance and units of measurement: among others, щи, рассольник, окрошка,
квас, валенки, косоворотка, лапта, гусли, частушки, трепак, верста, etc. A great number
of these words are difficult to relate to any specific historical period, as these are the “travelling
through time” realia mentioned above. They emerged early in the history of Russia and are still
in widespread or restricted use today.
A possible way of fusing the above temporal typologies is presented below:
I. unspecified (all realia that are difficult to relate to a particular historical period);
II. specified:
1. modern (related to post-Soviet times);
2. historical:
2a. related to pre-Soviet times;
2b. related to Soviet times.
In literary translation, realia from different historical periods contribute to creating the
atmosphere of the relevant epoch. Translators therefore often need to convey not only the
referential meaning of the realia in question, but also its historical connotations. Obsolete realia
are typically stylistically marked, which makes them still more translation-resistant.
Another important question which I have touched upon in the discussion of
“international realia” and which should be raised again is one of the familiarity of a word in the
TL community, i.e. its degree of assimilation. Vlakhov and Florin (1986/2012: 75) argue that
it should be regarded as a temporal issue. According to the criterion of familiarity, they
distinguish between two categories of realia:
1. familiar;
2. unfamiliar.
The scholars readily acknowledge that these notions are rather relative and vague yet attempt
to make them a little more specific. They point out that a foreign lexical item becomes “familiar”
67
through frequent use — when it is often found in literature, used in mass media and everyday
speech (ibid: 75). The process of linguistic borrowing is long and complex, so it is not that easy
to pinpoint the moment when a word becomes fully integrated in the recipient language.
Normally, as a new word comes to general use — that is, becomes part of ever more people’s
vocabulary — it is eventually included into a reputable dictionary gaining “official recognition”.
As a rule, however, dictionary updates, even in our digital age, fail to catch up with all the new
phenomena emerging in a language, thus checking whether or not a word is included in the
monolingual dictionary is not a fully reliable way to label the word “familiar” or “unfamiliar”
to a specific language community. Yet, apart from extensive public surveys, which are not
always feasible, there are not so many other ways to establish whether or not a new word is
already adopted by the language community and can be regarded as a loanword. Bearing this
in mind, Vlakhov and Florin suggest that the above division between familiar and unfamiliar
realia might be roughly represented in the following way (ibid: 77):
1. lexical items that are included in dictionaries of the TL;
2. lexical items that are not included in dictionaries of the TL.
The scholars admit that this kind of typology is in many ways too formal and arbitrary but
consider it useful in explaining and predicting the choice of translation procedures. In the case
of written translation, this approach is particularly valid as translators actively use dictionaries
and might rely on them when in doubt whether to render a realia with a loanword or otherwise.
I find this classification useful in one more respect: unlike the fuzzy local distinction proposed
by Vlakhov and Florin (national, regional and international realia), the dictionary principle is
language-specific. In other words, while we can only assume that Russian dacha is an
internationally spread word, one way to establish if it is known in a specific language
community would still be to look it up in the monolingual dictionary. High frequency in a TL
corpus is another indication of the assimilation of a foreign word.
This leads us to another important question. In the previous section, I indicated that,
since realia are treated as a relative category in my study and examined only in specific
language pairs, the question arises whether Russian words borrowed into English or Norwegian
and thus having dictionary equivalents in these languages should be classified as realia. The
answer to this question has direct consequences for my data selection.
At first thought, since these words have well established counterparts in the TL
(большевик → bolsjevik, царь → tsar, etc.), translators from Russian do not need to reflect
much on possible translation solutions as these suggest themselves. By contrast, when it comes
68
to clear cases of realia, translators do not have a ready-made solution at their disposal and thus
need to consciously select one of a variety of options. Naturally, this latter type of words
represents the most interesting cases for translation scholars. The question is whether a
translator’s choice is always as unambiguous as it seems when loanwords are available. It is
important to bear in mind that a word goes through a number of adaptation stages in the receptor
language and the mere fact that it is included in the dictionary does not necessarily mean that
the word is fully integrated. Hence, translators always have some degree of freedom in handling
these words. Moreover, as these words often retain some of their original national color, are
stylistically marked and thus may contribute to the overall foreignizing feel of the target text,
the translator might go for what he/she perceives as a more domesticating solution. In the
example below, the word большевик is omitted in the English translation while preserved in
the Norwegian TT:
RU ST: Заметьте, Иван Арнольдович, холодными закусками и супом закусывают только
недорезанные большевиками помещики. (MB)
NO TT: Merk Dem følgende, Ivan Arnoldovitsj: kolde hors d’ouevres og suppe til forrett blir bare brukt
av godseiere som bolsjevikene ennå ikke har rukket å myrde.
EN TT: Kindly note, Ivan Arnoldovich, that the only people who eat cold hors d'oeuvres nowadays are
the few remaining landlords who haven’t had their throats cut.
Although this omission might be a result of rephrasing, it does affect the meaning considerably.
As the novel’s events do not take place during the civil war, it might remain unclear for a foreign
reader who cut the landlords’ throats and why.
Another example concerns the translation of the Russian word борщ. Spelling
variations in both TLs (English borsch/borscht and Norwegian borsj/borsjtsj) already suggest
that the word is not completely assimilated in these languages, so translators might consider
different solutions. In Bulgakov’s novel (not included in my data), the Norwegian translator
chooses a generic compound word to render борщ — rødbetsuppe (beet soup), while the
English translator uses the loanword:
RU ST: Он открыл портфель, глянул в него, сунул в него руку, посинел лицом и уронил портфель
в борщ. (Bulgakov, Master i Margarita)
NO TT: Han åpnet vesken, kikket ned i den, stakk hånden ned, ble helt blå i fjeset og slapp vesken ned i
rødbetsuppen.
EN TT: He opened the briefcase, glanced into it, put a hand inside, went blue in the face, and dropped the
briefcase into the borscht.
69
There is no short of similar examples in literary translations. Not only those culture-bound items
which are not fully integrated in the TL might be rendered in different ways (царица, despite
having dictionary equivalents of tsarina/tsaritsa, is translated both as queen and tsarina in
English and as keiserinne, dronning and tsarina in Norwegian), but, surprisingly enough, also
those words that have been borrowed into the TL long ago, may get a domesticating rendering.
Two examples from translations of Anna Karenina may illustrate that:
RU ST: – Так вели, Маша, принести ужинать: три порции, водки и вина… (Tolstoy, Anna
Karenina)
NO TT: “Så bestill aftens, Masja: tre porsjoner, vodka og vin…”
EN TT: “Then, Masha, tell them to bring supper; three portions, spirits and wine…”
RU ST: – Ты лучше скажи, что выпить; такая гадость во рту, что ...
– Водки лучше всего, – пробасил Яшвин. – Терещенко! водки барину и огурец, —
крикнул он, видимо любя слушать свой голос.
NO TT: “Du kunne heller fortelle meg hva jeg skal drikke; jeg har sånn en ekkel smak i munnen
at…”
“Vodka er aller best,” brummet Jasjvins bass. “Teresjtsjenko! Bring vodka og agurker til
herren!” ropte han; han nøt tydeligvis å høre sin egen stemme.
EN TT: “You’d better tell me what to drink; such a nasty taste in my mouth, that…”
“Brandy’s better than anything,” boomed Yashvin. “Tereshtchenko! Brandy for your master
and cucumbers,” he shouted, obviously taking pleasure in the sound of his own voice.
In both cases, the Norwegian translator uses the loanword vodka whereas the English one
renders водка with the generic word spirits and the functional substitute brandy.
Overall, one of the key characteristics of realia is that they denote unique objects and
phenomena of a particular culture and, even when borrowed, do not lose their association with
the source culture. Thus, for stylistic or other purposes they might be omitted or replaced.
Regardless of when the borrowing took place, these words have not been in the receptor
language long enough to become stylistically neutral and often leave the translator some room
for choice towards a more domesticating or a more foreignizing strategy. Nevertheless, it is
difficult to deny the fact that водка will be in most cases rendered as vodka and царь as tsar in
Norwegian and English translations. To perform a quantitative analysis, I have to make a clear
decision about which ones of the Russian realia well-known in the TC should be included in
my data. This is covered in Section 5.2.
70
3.9.3 Thematic typology The thematic classification of realia is the most extensive and detailed one among Vlakhov and
Florin’s typologies (1980, 1986/2012). It was developed primarily for the purpose of showing
the semantic variety of realia, but also as an attempt to reveal how the semantic field of a given
realia might be linked to the specific procedures used by translators to render it. Apart from
that, the typology provides a possible template for how the discussion of this translation-
resistant vocabulary could be structured. Giving a comprehensive account of all realia in the
selected texts is an impossible task. Therefore, I have chosen to focus on a number of realia
from different thematic groups and discuss how the semantic content of a particular realia type
may affect the choice of a translation solution. This constitutes the qualitative part of my
research. In the quantitative part, however, I have made an attempt to include all the realia
found in the six novels selected for the present study.
Vlakhov and Florin (1986/2012: 55–61) group realia into three big categories:
I. geographic realia,
II. ethnographic realia,
III. sociopolitical realia.
Each of these categories is further divided into more specific thematic groups and subgroups.
The classification which I am going to use in my work is largely based on this typology.
However, mine is somewhat simplified: some groups are merged into one, while others are
missing, because occasionally the level of elaboration in Vlakhov and Florin’s typology seems
excessive. Moreover, where Vlakhov and Florin use a three-level classification (I. Ethnography:
1. Everyday Life: a. Food and Drinks), I will confine myself to a two-level one (I. Ethnography:
1. Food and Drinks). Certainly, the typology proposed below is just one of many ways to
classify realia. This lexis could be organized into more general classes or, on the contrary, the
classes may be further particularized, depending on what semantic features one wishes to bring
into focus. Semantic fields are, indeed, not rigid cells: they interact and overlap, thus realia
from what I define as different thematic groups might in fact share quite a few semantic features.
It should also be noted that my typology is not exhaustive and could easily be extended, as it is
based only on the data I have collected. All of the examples cited in Sections 3.9.3.1–3 are
meant as mere illustration of realia’s use in context and will be discussed in more detail in
Chapter 6.
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3.9.3.1 Geographic realia As geographic phenomena rarely happen to be culture-specific, these realia constitute the
smallest class. Geographic realia may be divided into three groups:
names of
1. objects of physical geography, including meteorology (степь, пуща, тайга, тундра)28:
RU ST: А после тундры тайга. (MS)
NO TT: Og etter tundraen kommer taigaen.
EN TT: And after the tundra comes the taiga.
2. geographical objects associated with human activity (арык, курган):
RU ST: Помню только полдневное пекло, какие-то ямы и далекие курганы в степи. (MS)
NO TT: Det eneste jeg husker, er solsteken den formiddagen, noen groper i jorden og noen hauger som
vi kunne se langt borte i det fjerne på steppen.
EN TT: All I remember is the noonday oven, some pits, and distant barrows in the steppe.
3. endemic species (битюг, текинец, урюк):
RU ST: Мужичок хлестнул своего битюга кнутом, тот тряхнул косматой гривой, фыркнул и
побежал вдоль широкой улицы (…). (BA)
NO TT: Vannselgeren ga arbeidsgampen sin et slag med pisken så den fnyste og ristet den lodne manen,
så løp den bortover den brede gaten (…).
EN TT: The man lashed his dray horse with his whip; it shook its tangled mane, snorted and set off along
the broad street (…).
3.9.3.2 Ethnographic realia Ethnographic realia constitute the largest and most varied category. These are lexical items
denoting objects and phenomena of material and intellectual culture, customs, occupations, arts
and crafts, etc. — in short, a people’s way of life. It may be broken down into fifteen
subcategories:
realia denoting
1. food, drinks, tobacco products and catering establishments (голубцы, щи, винегрет,
кутья, пироги, квас, жженка, папиросы, чайная):
28 All the examples here and below — both words and utterances — are taken from the six Russian novels and their translations that I examine.
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RU ST: А пирожки, кстати говоря, — дрянь порядочная. (MS)
NO TT: De pirogene var forresten noe ordentlig skitt.
EN TT: The pirozhki, by the way, are perfectly awful.
2. clothing, including footwear, headwear, jewelry, etc. (гимнастерка, валенки, треух,
косоворотка, тулуп, камзол, тужурка, башлык):
RU ST: (...) одежда на нем тоже какая-то старомодная, что-то вроде косоворотки, поверх которой
надет пиджак, — все поношенное, но чистое и аккуратное (…). (LT)
NO TT: (...) klærne hans er også noe gammeldagse, en skjorte med rett krage med sideknepning, over
denne har han en dressjakke — alt slitt, men rent og pertentlig (...).
EN TT: (...) and his clothes are also out-of-date, a waistcoat over what looks like a traditional Russian
shirt — everything well-worn, but clean and neat (…).
3. types of housing and parts of a dwelling (коммуналка, сени, дача, девичья, бытовка,
терем, красный уголок) as well as parts of human settlements (околица, торцы, погост):
RU ST: У Тани была отдельная комната, светелка во втором этаже (…). (LUS)
NO TT: Tanja fikk eget rom, et lite krypinn i annen etasje (…).
EN TT: Tanya had a sunny room of her own on the second floor.
4. household items such as furniture, tableware, other utensils (самовар, подстаканник,
полати, пасочница, коптилка):
RU ST: В центре стола, как драгоценный шар, стоял самовар, но чаю не варил. (LUM)
NO TT: Midt på bordet sto samovaren som en kostbar glasskule, men det var ikke tevann på kok i den.
EN TT: In the middle of the table, like a precious globe, stood the samovar, but it wasn't boiling for the
tea.
5. transport — vehicles, drivers, infrastructure (столыпин, тройка, ямщик, двуколка,
шарабан, плацкарт, столбовая дорога, ладья):
RU ST: (...) возвращались из Крыма на поезде и остановились на каком-то разъезде, а прямо
напротив — столыпин, в узеньком окошке решетка и чье-то полудетское лицо. (MS)
NO TT: Vi var på vei tilbake fra Krim med tog og hadde stanset på et krysningsspor, og tvers overfor oss
stod en “stolypinvogn”, der i den smale vindusåpningen så jeg gitteret, og bak det skimtet jeg et ansikt,
nesten et barneansikt.
EN TT: We were returning from the Crimea by train and had stopped at some junction, and directly across
was a Stolypin car, and there were bars and someone’s almost childish face in the narrow window.
6. weapons and military equipment (булава, шашка, нагайка, свинчатка, ятаган):
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RU ST: – Вам не хватает шашки, – заметил я. – Полицейский офицер не может быть без шашки.
(BA)
NO TT: “De mangler sabel,” bemerket jeg. “Politioffiserer kan ikke være uten sabel.”
EN TT: “You don’t have a sabre,” I remarked. “A police officer has to have a sabre.”
7. work related objects, tools, professions, organization of labor (проводник, буфетчик,
городовой, скороход, ударник, передовик, завхоз):
RU ST: (...) перед чернявым мужчиной, представлявшим собой странный гибрид ударника
производства и мужика от сохи, на коленях стоял юноша без рубашки, в одних джинсах и босой
(…). (LT)
NO TT: (...) foran en mørkhåret mann som forestilte en underlig hybrid mellom en
produksjonsarbeidshelt og en bonde av reneste herkomst, knelte en ungdom uten skjorte, i bare jeans
og barføtt (…).
EN TT: (...) in front of a dark-haired man strangely embodying a mixture of industrial shockworker and
primitive muzhik, knelt a barefoot, bare-chested youth with identical features, dressed only in jeans (...).
8. arts and crafts, including performing arts (music, song, dance, theatre, etc.) and
performers (балаган, петрушка, свирель, хоровод, куплетист, балалаечник, лубок):
RU ST: Перед началом сеанса публику развлекали балалаечники, исполняли фокстроты. (MS)
NO TT: Der var det noen balalaika-musikanter som underholdt publikum før forestillingen med å spille
foxtrot.
EN TT: Before the show began the public was entertained by balalaikas playing foxtrots.
9. folklore and mythology (скатерть-самобранка, царевна-лягушка, сорока-белобока,
чудо-юдо, Дед Мороз, домовой, небылицы, прибаутки):
RU ST: Извозчики под снегом — как деды морозы. (MS)
NO TT: Drosjekuskene sitter nedsnedd som julenisser.
EN TT: The snow-blanketed coachmen are like Father Frosts.
10. customs, games, toys, celebrations and holidays (винт, Масленица, 9 мая,
ванька-встанька, вербное воскресенье, ноябрьские праздники, день танкиста):
RU ST: (...) это была та самая сестра, которая жила когда-то на Старой Басманной в Межевом
институте и семью которой они с Федей посетили на Масленице вскоре после их женитьбы (…).
(LT)
NO TT: (...) dette var den samme søsteren som en gang hadde bodd på Staraja Basmannaja på
landmålerinstituttet og hvis familie hun og Fedja hadde besøkt i fasten like etter bryllupet (…).
EN TT: (...) and this was the same sister who once used to live on Staraya Basmannaya Street in the
Institute of Surveying and whose family she and Fedya had visited at Shrovetide soon after their marriage
(...).
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11. religion — religious practices and practitioners, rituals, places of worship,
sacred objects, etc. (благовест, миропомазание, толстовец, капище, старец,
раскольник, старовер, иеромонах):
RU ST: – Триста лет рыли, а то и б-больше: и монахи в годы смуты, и мятежные стрельцы, и
раскольники, прятавшие от патриарха Никона старинные книги и церковное серебро (…). (BA)
NO TT: “De gravde i tre hundre år, om ikke mer: både munkene i den urolige tiden på 1600-tallet, og de
opprørske Streletsene, og Raskolnikerne, som gjemte gamle bøker og kirkesølv fra Patriark Nikon (…).”
EN TT: “They must have been digging it for three hundred years, if not longer: the monks during the Time
of Troubles and the rebel Streltsy, and the Old Believers hiding their ancient books and church silver from
the Patriarch Nikon (...).”
12. indigenous ethnic groups (тунгусы, петровские немцы, башкирка, черкес,
древляне, калмыки, орочи):
RU ST: Первого сентября каждый год ритуальные побоища между школами — побеждают то
орочи, то тунгусы. (MS)
NO TT: Ved skolestart første september er det hvert år et ritual at skolene ryker i hop i slagsmål — snart
er det orotsjerne som vinner, snart tunguserne.
EN TT: The first of September every year are the ritual brawls between schools. Sometimes the Orochs
win, sometimes the Tungus.
Humorous or derogatory terms referring to ethnic groups also belong to this category
(ходя, жидочек, хохол):
RU ST: – Эй, ходя, что стоит вот это? – показал я на пагоду, доставая кошелек. (BA)
NO TT: “Hei du, hva koster den der?” Jeg pekte på pagoden og tok opp lommeboken.
EN TT: “Hey, pedlar, how much is that?” I asked, pointing at the pagoda and taking out my purse.
13. language/dialect related phenomena (вязь, азбука, аканье):
RU ST: – Это еще не самое прискорбное, господин Зюкин, – сказал московский помощник с
характерным “аканьем”, заметив мое неудовольствие. (BA)
NO TT: “Dette er likevel ikke alt, herr Zjukin,” sa min Moskva-assistent da han merket min utilfredshet.
EN TT: “And that is still not the most deplorable thing, Mr Ziukin,” my Moscow assistant said with those
distinctive broad Moscow ‘a’s when he noticed my dissatisfaction.
14. currency, including slang words denoting money (алтын, канарейка,
полтинник, целковый, копейка, гривенник, ассигнации, червонец):
RU ST: – Пропали мои полтора червячка. (MB)
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NO TT: “Der røk mine femten rubler…”
EN TT: “So that’s farewell to a few more copecks.”
15. units of measurement (вершок, верста, пуд, сотка, сажень):
RU ST: Мотоцикл простучал двадцать верст, отделявших станцию от совхоза, в четверть часа.
(MB)
NO TT: Motorsykkelen putret seg gjennom de tyve verstene som skilte stasjonen fra kollektivbruket, på
et kvarter.
EN TT: The motorbike covered the twelve miles between the station and the farm in a quarter of an hour.
3.9.3.3 Socio-political realia As the name suggests, sociopolitical realia are lexical items relating to society and its
organization, the government and public affairs of a country. These are realia denoting:
1. administrative divisions and types of settlements (область, уезд, губерния, околоток,
округ, аул, волость, край):
RU ST: Зюкины происходят из крепостных Звенигородского уезда Московской губернии. (BA)
NO TT: Zjukin-slekten nedstammer fra livegne i Zvenigorod-distriktet i Moskva guvernement.
EN TT: The Ziukins have their origins among the serfs of the Zvenigorod district of the province of
Moscow.
2. historical events, political and social movements and their participants, policies
(коллективизация, военный коммунизм, нэп, оттепель, опричник, декабрист,
западник, славянофил, махновцы, самиздат):
RU ST: (...) немногим более ста лет спустя споры между славянофилами и западниками,
казалось навсегда угасшие с приходом к власти рабочих и крестьян, возобновились с новой силой
(…). (LT)
NO TT: (...) godt hundre år senere syntes det som om diskusjonen mellom slavofilene og de vestvendte,
som hadde lagt seg for godt samtidig med at arbeidere og bønder kom til makten, flammet opp igjen med
fornyet styrke (…).
EN TT: Slightly more than a hundred years later arguments between Slavophiles and Westernizers,
which had been extinguished apparently forever by the coming to power of the workers and peasants,
have resumed with renewed energy (…).
3. professional, commercial, social institutions and their members (ЗАГС, богадельня,
долговая тюрьма, колхоз, артель, НКВД, Синод, комиссионка):
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RU ST: (...) до революции здесь помещалась не то еврейская больница для бедных, не то
богадельня (…). (LT)
NO TT: (…) før revolusjonen hadde det vært et jødisk sykehus for fattige her, eller kanskje var det et
fattighus (…).
EN TT: (...) and before the Revolution it had been either an infirmary for impoverished Jews or a hospital
for the eldery and infirm (...).
4. educational institutions and their members and other phenomena related to education
(институтка, курсистка, гимназист, рабфак, десятилетка, училище, пятерка):
RU ST: Или вот в Аничковой призрак смольнинской институтки, якобы совращенной государем
Николаем Павловичем и после наложившей на себя руки. (BA)
NO TT: Eller så har vi Anitsjkov-palasset, med gjenferdet av en studine fra Smolnyj-instituttet; hun
skal angivelig ha blitt forført av Nikolaj den Første og la deretter hånd på seg.
EN TT: And then in the Anichkov Palace there is the ghost of a female student from the Smolny
Institute who was supposedly seduced by Tsar Nikolai Pavlovich and afterwards took her own life.
5. forms of social stratification (estates, social classes, etc.) and their members (мужик,
потомственный дворянин, интеллигенция, казак, боярин, холоп):
RU ST: (…) и пан Жувальский, с первых звуков голоса почуяв в нем принадлежность к своей касте,
к попранной европейской интеллигенции, двинулся навстречу с улыбкой узнавания. (LUS)
NO TT: (...) og pan Zjuwalski, som straks han hørte lyden av stemmen hans, fornemmet at denne mannen
tilhørte hans egen kaste, den dypt krenkede europeiske intelligentsiaen, beveget seg mot dem med et
gjenkjennende smil.
EN TT: (...) and pan Rzuwalski, identifying the moment he heard the voice of someone from his own
caste of the downtrodden European intelligentsia, advanced on him with a smile of recognition.
6. ranks, titles, forms of address (барышня, госпожа, гоф-фурьер, оберкамергер,
великий князь, сударь, коллежский советник, заслуженный артист, царица):
RU ST: Например, одна в наряде Коломбины, показавшаяся мне смутно знакомой, пожалуй,
поспорила бы тонкостью стана и гибкостью движения с самой госпожой Зизи. (BA)
NO TT: For eksempel var det en forkledd som Columbine, som på uklart vis forekom meg kjent, og som
kunne ha konkurrert med frøken Sisi hva yndig figur og smidige bevegelser angikk.
EN TT: For instance, one in the costume of Columbine, who seemed vaguely familiar to me, could
probably have rivalled the slim waist and suppleness of Miss Zizi herself.
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7. military units and personnel (атаман, гардемарин, донцы, камер-казак, военком,
воевода, спецназ, драгунский полк):
RU ST: В тысяча девятьсот двадцатом году я был определен в подразделение ЧОН и выехал для
изъятия хлеба. (LUM)
NO TT: I 1920 ble jeg utkommandert til en underavdeling av Spesialavdelingene i TsjON og var reist
ut for å beslaglegge korn.
EN TT: In 1920, I was drafted into a subdivision of the ChON Special Detachments and sent out to
requisition grain.
8. official documents and awards (охранная грамота, профсоюзная путевка, прописка,
красный диплом, сберкнижка, разрешение на выезд, андреевские цепи):
RU ST: – Ну, паспорт дайте, прописку, – попросила Сонечка. (LUS)
NO TT: – Ja, men så la meg få se passet Deres, da, bostedsbeviset, bad Sonetsjka igjen.
EN TT: “Let me have your passport and residence permit then, please,” Sonechka requested.
As mentioned above, thematic classes inevitably overlap, because a lexical item might have
semantic features relevant to more than one class. Examples of this are readily available in my
data: for instance, ряса (a specific type of long gown worn by Orthodox priests) could be
classified as both a piece of clothing and as a religion-related item. Further, many holidays have
been traditionally associated with religious celebrations, thus they might be assigned to two
classes — “customs, celebrations, holidays, etc.” and “religious practices”. Another example
would be military realia that may be classified as realia denoting titles and ranks (генерал-
адъютант, атаман). Likewise, names of executive officials (жандарм, околоточный
надзиратель, городовой) could be viewed as professions or titles, while the word казаки —
as referring to a military community or an estate.
Examples of overlapping classes are numerous indeed. Having acknowledged the
limitations of this typology, I will nevertheless attempt to classify my data in such a way as to
assign each item to only one class. This will allow me to perform statistical calculations which
may or may not reveal something about the relation between the semantic field of realia and
the translation procedures used to convey them in the TT. In other words, I will try to follow
the universal standards adopted in statistics, where the classes must always be mutually
exclusive (no data value can fall into two different classes) and at the same time exhaustive (all
data values should be included). In ambiguous cases, the decisions as to which category is a
better fit for a specific lexical unit will of necessity be somewhat subjective.
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3.10 Realia in literary translation In Descriptive Translation Studies — and Beyond, Toury (2012) recognizes the ambiguity of
the term “literary translation” frequently used in translation discourse. The two main
interpretations, according to Toury (2012: 199), are as follows:
1. the translation of texts which are viewed as literary in the source culture;
2. the translation of a text — any text — “in such a way that the product is acceptable as a
literary text in the recipient culture” (ibid).
Toury also reminds us of the fact the demarcation between “literary” and “non-literary” is not
universal: it differs across cultures and epochs. In my work, I use the concept of literary
translation in the most common sense, in which the two aforementioned interpretations coincide.
In other words, in the present study, literary translation is understood as a translation of a text
which is considered literary in the source culture and at the same time, as a translation, it is
considered literary in the target culture, too. The typical features of a literary text are listed in
Jones (2011: 152): it exists in a written form; enjoys canonicity; has an affective/aesthetic
function; is viewed as fictional, whether fact-based or not; features words, images etc. with
ambiguous meanings; is characterized by “poetic” language use and heteroglossia.
The written form of a literary text, although often taken for granted, deserves a closer
look in the discussion of realia. The medium of both ST and TT has importance for how realia
are handled. While in movie subtitles the translator is restricted in various way (in terms of
verbosity, paratextual comments, etc.), a translator of a written text enjoys greater freedom —
realia may be explained in extended paraphrases, intratextual and extratextual comments. On
the other hand, a subtitle translator may rely on the visual information when communicating
culture-specific vocabulary — a resource that is not available to a literary translator. Below is
an example where the translator employs both intratextual specification and extratextual
comment to inform the reader about the ingredients of a particular Russian dish and the occasion
it is traditionally served for:
RU ST: Стояла кутья, хлеб, сыр, блюдо среднеазиатской зелени да крутые яйца. (LUM)
NO TT: De hadde “kutja” — den spesielle gravølsgrøten, brød, ost, et fat med sentralasiatiske
grønnsaker og hardkokte egg.
If кутья was featured in a movie and was to be translated in subtitles, translators might have
confined themselves to a loanword (kutja) and assumed that the visual information on screen
would be sufficient to help viewers understand what this dish is like. In translating the written
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text, however, the translator not only uses Explicitation by Paraphrase, but in addition to that,
provides an endnote with a more elaborate definition of kutja: “gravølsgrøt av kokt ris eller
gryn med honning og rosiner” (funeral porridge of cooked rice or grain with honey and raisins).
Paratext (translator’s introduction, footnotes, glossary, etc.) makes the translator’s voice more
distinct. However, in a literary text it is typically used sparingly, as translators do not wish to
distract readers from staying immersed in the fictional story. It is also important to keep in mind
that in a literary translation of drama, certain constraints relevant to audiovisual translations are
valid, too — i.e. direct speech does not allow for paratextual comments.
The aesthetic function of a literary translation is another aspect that has a great influence
on translator’s decision-making when dealing with realia. Whereas in a primarily informative
non-literary text, a word may function as a term and be treated accordingly, in fictional prose
the same word may have a different role and require a less precise rendering. For instance,
аканье can be a specific linguistic term in a scientific article and a means of speech
characterization in a novel. In the latter case, the translator would choose between a wider range
of translation options to render this realia (see Section 6.2.13).
It is not uncommon that realia in literary texts are used in metaphors and similes. This
inevitably has significance for how realia are treated in translation:
RU ST: Его бритое круглое лицо, налитое желтоватым студнем, являло приветливую улыбку. (MB)
NO TT: Det glattbarberte runde ansiktet hans var smurt inn med en gulaktig gelatin, og det oppviste et
elskelig smil.
EN TT: The clean-shaven round face resembling yellowish meat-jelly was creased into a welcoming
smile.
Here the Russian dish студень is used in a metaphor describing the unattractive texture of the
character’s face and thus receives approximated treatment in translation. In the English TT, a
dish with a similar appearance is used to describe the face. In the Norwegian TT, on the other
hand, there is no attempt to find a specific culinary substitute for the Russian realia. Instead,
the focus on the texture, which is most relevant for the metaphor in question, is conveyed by
introducing a similar substance — gelatin. Arguably, a reference to a specific dish found in the
original and in the English translation has a stronger expressive power than a mere comparison
with gelatin. This example illustrates that, in literary translation, the semantic content of a realia
may not be transferred accurately to a TT. Instead, the metaphorical use of realia may yield
rather unconventional translation solutions.
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Below is another utterance where a realia word is used in its figurative meaning and
entails very different translation solutions:
RU ST: – Свиньи! Опричники! Убить их, господа, как они наших! (BA)
NO TT: “Svin! Bødler! Drep dem, slik de dreper våre!”
EN TT: “Bastards! Oprichniks! Kill them, gentlemen, just as they kill us.
In the above example, the word опричники is clearly not used in its direct historical meaning
of a member of the oppressive organization Oprichnina established by Ivan the Terrible and
responsible for mass executions. Instead, it is meant as a curse: the word characterizes someone
as extremely cruel and unethical. In order to understand this expressive utterance, one needs to
have an idea of what опричники were known for. The English solution, preserving the Russian
realia, conveys local and historical flavor, but runs the risk of not being understood, as the
context merely suggests the negative sense of the word without revealing anything specific.
The Norwegian translator opts for a generic, not culture-specific word that explicates the
metaphorical meaning of опричники — bødler (executioners). The vivid image of the Russian
curse is lost in the Norwegian TT, whereas the expressive power of the English utterance would
depend on the reader’s knowledge of Russian history.
The two examples above are not sufficient to demonstrate that realia in literary
translation bring about a virtually infinite range of translation solutions which are very different
in their semantic proximity to the original, aesthetic effect and local “color”. As Jones points
out: “The complexity of many literary messages means that literary translators are
conventionally allowed a wide range of text-transformation options” (Jones 2011: 154).
Considerations of style in literary translation are closely tied to the space-time of the
original literary work (its “chronotope” in Bakhtin’s terms). Whether this is an old novel
translated for the present-day reader or a stylized historical novel, the translator’s challenges
are similar: he or she has to choose between prioritizing the semantic content of obsolete realia
or their stylistic component. If the former is chosen, two “translation universals” come into play:
explicitation and standardization (see Toury’s translation laws in Toury 1995/2012 and Baker’s
translation universals in Baker 1993). With respect to culture-bound vocabulary, this can mean
that realia are explicated or rendered with modern functional substitutes. Adapting SL realia to
the cultural context of the TL readership results in better understanding but, provided the reader
is knowledgeable enough, may create a conflict between the ST reality and alien cultural
elements introduced by the translator. Vlakhov and Florin (1986/2012) refer to these elements
as “anachronisms and analocisms”. An example of an anachronism is сажень rendered as
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meter in translation (see Section 6.2.15 on measurement realia). Analocism can be illustrated
by the excerpt below:
RU ST: – Так и не увижу венчания на царство, даром что камер-юнкер. (BA)
EN TT: “I’m never going to see a tsar crowned, even though I am a gentleman of the bedchamber.”
A character of Akunin’s historical novel refers to himself as having the title of камер-юнкер.
Although the word is borrowed from German, it is a Russian realia, as the title took a specific
position in the official Table of Ranks in the Russian Empire and does not match similar titles
in other countries at that time. The English solution gentleman of the bedchamber, while being
close to the Russian realia in terms of the duties performed by a person carrying this title, is a
distinctly British court title used in the Kingdom of England and might sound out-of-place in
Russian prose. This example is crucially different from сажень → meter in that the translator
attempts to preserve the stylistic component present in the original. The TL counterpart not only
conveys the semantics of the SL word but also replicates the ST readers’ experience of
encountering an outdated title in a text. It should be noted, however, that, since the referent is
also outdated and there are thus no modern counterparts of the word, the choice of translation
solutions is rather limited in this case.
The Czech translation scholar Jiri Levy, while highlighting the reproductive nature of
literary translation, describes it as “an original creative process” (Levy 1963/2011: 57) and
ultimately calls it “artistic reproduction”. Certainly, it would be wrong to say that only literary
translation, as opposed to other types of translation, gives room to creativity. However, as I
have tried to show above, literary translation may provide particularly interesting data for
investigating realia due to a number of characteristics: the importance of aesthetic function,
ambiguity and complexity of some images, lack of additional audiovisual information, sparing
use of paratext, among other things. This imposes certain restrictions on a translator, but also
allows him/her a significant amount of freedom in dealing with realia, as their exact referential
meaning may not always be crucial in a given literary text.
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4 Material 4.1 Selection criteria for source texts and target texts The material for the present study was selected based on the following criteria:
1. The source texts should be fictional.
2. All of the selected Russian source texts should exist in both Norwegian and English
translations.
3. Half of the Norwegian target texts should be produced by one translator and the other
half — by another.
4. All the translations should be relatively recent, i.e. made after 1990.
5. For practical purposes, as many as possible texts should be included in the RuN Corpus.
In what follows, I will discuss these criteria in more detail.
4.1.1 Fictional texts When dealing with realia in a fictional text, one has certain constraints — for instance, one
might want to avoid overloading a novel with paratextual information (footnotes, glossaries,
etc.). On the other hand, in literary translation realia do not always have to be rendered
accurately, the way terminology in a scientific article must be handled, as their function in a
given fictional context may not be purely informative. According to the text typology by the
functionalist translation scholar Katharina Reiss, fictional texts belong to the expressive
category where the informative aspect is overruled by the aesthetic one, thus one of the
translator’s major concerns is preserving the style of a given ST (Reiss 2000/2014). The
expressive function of a literary text allows one to be inventive and opt for round-about
translation solutions. For my study, I have chosen to focus on fictional texts because I expect
to find a great variety of translation solutions for rendering realia in translations of such texts.
It is also relatively easy to find material for a cross-linguistic comparative analysis in the
domain of literary translation, as fictional texts often have multiple translations.
4.1.2 Norwegian and English target texts In my study I have included only those Russian source texts which have been translated to both
Norwegian and English. This choice is based on the assumption that my quantitative
calculations as well as qualitative examination of realia will considerably benefit from a cross-
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linguistic comparison. I expect that a comparative study will reveal interesting differences in
translators’ solutions for the same translation problems occurring in the same text and context.
Furthermore, despite examining a rather small number of texts, I would like to see how my
results will fit into Even-Zohar’s Polysystem Theory of Translation (see Sections 1.6 and 2.4).
4.1.3 Two Norwegian translators While a cross-linguistic and cross-cultural comparison of translations is what I am mostly
concerned with in my study of realia, I would also like to see if I can find any translation
regularities in the works of specific translators. In order to do this, I have chosen six target texts
created by two Norwegian translators of Russian fiction — Dagfinn Foldøy and Marit Bjerkeng
— for my study (three texts by each translator). Being well aware of the fact that the agents of
translation include subjects other than translators, for the purposes of my study and for the sake
of simplicity, I will treat the translators as the sole decision-maker in the translation process,
disregarding the role played by publishers, copyeditors, etc. A comparative analysis of the two
translators will only be performed by means of the quantitative model presented in Section 5.4.2.
In other words, the qualitative part of my study does not aim at comparing the two Norwegian
translators.
Unlike the case when different translations of the same source texts are compared, the
comparison of the TTs based on different STs is more problematic. After all, the results of such
an analysis may be attributed to the fact that the source texts are different in many respects —
in terms of genre, length, setting, specific realia used, etc. Yet my hope is that some interesting
patterns may emerge from the comparison of two selected translators.
4.1.4 Recent translations For my study, I have chosen only translations made in recent years — in the period between
1990 and 2012. My decision in favor of a synchronous study was motivated by the desire to
exclude the temporal aspect from the factors influencing the degree of
domestication/foreignization of realia. At the same time, I do realize that this aspect is not
eliminated completely, as a translation made in 1991 may be significantly different in terms of
handling realia from a translation made in 2012. This is due in no small part to the fact that the
number of Internet users worldwide has been growing exponentially in the last years, which
gives translators as well as the target text readers easy access to cultural information and, as a
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result, may modify translation strategies for rendering culture-specific vocabulary. For instance,
a translator might prefer Retention instead of Explicitation or Extratextual Specification in the
expectation that readers will fill their knowledge gaps using web search. The distribution of the
selected TTs by publishing year is presented below:
Table 2. Distribution of the target texts by year of publication
Year of Publication Number of Target Texts
1991–1995 1
1995–2000 1
2001–2005 3
2006–2010 6
2010–2012 1
As shown above, the majority (10 out of 12) of target texts were published in the period from
2001 to 2012, i.e. in the years when the use of Internet was rapidly growing. This will hopefully
ensure that my data will not be significantly affected by the temporal factor.
4.1.5 Texts found in the RuN corpus At an early stage in my study, I decided to use the RuN corpus — a parallel corpus of Russian,
Norwegian and English texts compiled at the University of Oslo. The use of a parallel corpus
in translation research greatly facilitates data retrieval, as one can quickly find translation
correspondences of a given sentence in different TTs. However, because of the chosen
constraints mentioned above (the criteria 2, 3 and 4), my options were somewhat limited. In the
end, four out of six Russian texts and their translations found in the RuN corpus proved to meet
all the criteria above and were included in my study. The other two STs and the corresponding
TTs are not available in the RuN Corpus.
4.2 Source texts and target texts selected for this study
The table below introduces all the source and target texts selected for my translation research,
with their publication year and the availability in the RuN corpus indicated.
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Table 3. Russian STs and their English and Norwegian translations selected for the present study
Source Text Year Target Texts Translator Year Run Corpus
Koronatsiia, ili poslednii iz romanov by Boris Akunin
2001 Kroningen: Fandorins åttende sak
Dagfinn Foldøy 2008 Yes
The Coronation: The Further Adventures of Erast Fandorin
Andrew Bromfield 2010 Yes
Rokovye iaitsa29 by Mikhail Bulgakov
1989 Fatale Egg Dagfinn Foldøy 2003 Yes
The Fateful Eggs Kathleen Gook-Horujy
1991 Yes
Leto v Badene by Leonid Tsypkin
2003 Sommer i Baden-Baden
Dagfinn Foldøy 2006 No
Summer in Baden-Baden
Roger and Angela Keys
2001/
200330
No
Venerin volos by Mikhail Shishkin
2005 Venushår Marit Bjerkeng 2010 No
Maidenhair Marian Schwartz 2012 No
Medeia i ee deti by Liudmila Ulitskaia
1996 Medea og hennes barn
Marit Bjerkeng 2007 Yes
Medea and Her Children
Arch Tait 2002 Yes
Sonechka by Liudmila Ulitskaia
1992 Sonetsjka Marit Bjerkeng 1998 Yes
Sonechka Arch Tait 2006 Yes
29 Bulgakov’s novella stands out among the selected texts in that it was written almost a century ago and first published in 1925. However, for the purposes of my study, the fact that the English and Norwegian translations were made recently was more important. 30 The first English translation of Leto v Badene was made in 1987. In 2001, a new edition was initiated by Susan Sontag and was published with an introduction written by her. The 2003 edition I work with is a reprint of the 2001 one. From this edition, quite a few ST passages are eliminated either by the translators or the publisher. I do not know if these passages were in place in the original 1987 translation or if this translation was different from the later one in other respects, therefore I specify 2001/2003 as the year of translation.
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4.3 Summary of the Russian source texts Below are short plot summaries of the Russian source texts included in the present study. I have
also indicated which historical periods the realia found in these STs belong to.
4.3.1 Koronatsiia, ili poslednii iz romanov by Boris Akunin This is a historical detective novel, first published in 2000, the seventh book in the Erast
Fandorin series. It is a first-person narrative structured like a detailed private diary, and the
story is told by one of its protagonists, Afanasii Ziukin, the majordomo of Grand Duke Georgii
Aleksandrovich. The novel is set in May 1886, at the time of the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II,
the last Emperor of Russia. It also features the Khodynka Tragedy, a stampede that took place
on Khodynka Field in Moscow during the festivities organized on the occasion of the
coronation. Erast Fandorin investigates the kidnapping of Grand Duke’s little son. A ransom
letter reveals that the famous criminal “Dr. Lind” demands the Count Orlov diamond, an
enormous diamond on the royal sceptre which is supposed to be part of the coronation ceremony.
Ziukin helps Fandorin in his investigation while the governess Mademoiselle Declique, who is
also involved in it, turns out to be Dr. Lind in disguise. Akunin is attempting to fuse history and
fiction and, although taking some liberties with the historical facts, incorporates many accurate
historical details into the story. The novel abounds in realia of pre-revolutionary Russia from
nearly all thematic categories.
4.3.2 Rokovye iaitsa by Mikhail Bulgakov This is a science-fiction novella originally published in 1925. It is set in 1928 Moscow and is a
linear third-person narrative. The protagonist, zoology professor Persikov, makes an accidental
discovery — a red ray that radically increases the size and reproduction speed of living
organisms. Meanwhile, Soviet Russia suffers an unknown plague that results in the extinction
of all chickens in the country. The sovkhoz chief, Rokk, with permission from the government,
confiscates Persikov’s invention in order to restore the poultry farming. However, the imported
eggs become mixed up, and reptile eggs arrive at Rokk’s farm. This leads to Rokk breeding lots
of gigantic aggressive snakes, ostriches and crocodiles, which ultimately results in a national
disaster. An outraged crowd kills Persikov, while the Red Army attempts to destroy the snakes
and restore order. The coming of sub-zero temperatures finally puts a stop to the reptile attacks.
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Bulgakov’s novella contains a large number of realia describing life in Russia in the early years
of Soviet rule.
4.3.3 Leto v Badene by Leonid Tsypkin The novel was written between 1977 and 1981, first published in 1981 in an emigrant magazine
in the US. The narrative about Dostoevsky and his wife Anna’s trip to Germany in 1867 is
intertwined with the narrator’s story of his own train ride from Moscow to Leningrad a hundred
years later, intermitted by the narrator’s flashbacks, associations as well as thoughts on
Dostoevsky — most importantly, Dostoevsky’s antisemitism. Both stories are united by the
narrator’s imagination, and often one flows into the other so that the lines between the two
narratives are blurred. Dostoevsky is portrayed as neurotic and weak-willed, with a constantly
wounded pride and a gambling addiction. The central event in the novel is Dostoevsky’s
summer trip to the gambling houses of Baden-Baden. Although the numerous details of
Dostoevsky’s life are accurate, the story line of the Dostoevsky couple can hardly be
categorized as a fictional biography, since Tsypkin’s prose too often touches on the lyrical.
Realia encountered in the novel come from the two time periods corresponding to the two
narrative lines: the late 19th century and the 1970s Soviet Union.
4.3.4 Venerin volos by Mikhail Shishkin The novel was written in 2002–2004 and originally published in 2005. It has three main story
lines: the life of the interpreter working for the Swiss immigration authorities (partly based on
Shishkin’s own life), the stories of refugees applying for political asylum which are to be
examined by the Swiss immigration officials, and the diaries of the singer Izabella Iur’eva
(1899–2000), covering the entire turbulent 20th century. The singer is connected with the
interpreter by the fact that he, when still living in Russia, received an assignment to edit her
diaries and interview her for a biographical book. The interview never took place, and the book
was never published. The story of the interpreter, despite being in part autobiographical, is
presented as a third-person narration, the singer’s diaries and the interpreter’s letters to his son
are first-person narratives, and the refugees’ reports to the authorities are structured as
interviews frequently turning into near monologs. Russian realia found in the novel come from
different historical periods: early 20th-century Russia (before and after the Revolution), Soviet
times and present-day Russia.
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4.3.5 Sonechka by Liudmila Ulitskaia This is a novella originally published in 1992. It recounts the life story of the bookworm
Sonechka, who prefers the fictional world of Russian literature to real life. When working in a
library, she meets the 50-year-old Robert Viktorovich, an artist and intellectual, who suddenly
proposes to her. Sonechka becomes a housewife fully devoted to her husband and daughter
Tania and seems to have lost her passion for literature. Her dreams revolve around a big family
house. In the 1950s they settle in Moscow in an old house, the teenage Tania enrolls in an
evening school where she makes friends with Jasia, an orphaned Polish girl. After a while, Jasia
becomes Robert’s mistress. When Robert dies unexpectedly, Sonechka and Jasia, grieving
together, essentially become a family while Tania is traveling around the country and eventually
moves to St. Petersburg. Robert’s wife and mistress are living together until Jasia returns to
Poland. By the end of the book, Sonechka is an old woman living alone and rediscovering her
love for literature. Most realia retrieved from this text belong to the Soviet era.
4.3.6 Medeia i ee deti by Liudmila Ulitskaia The novel, first published in 1996, is centered around Medeia Sinopli, the head of a large
Crimean Greek family and its oldest member. She has no children of her own, but her numerous
relatives and their friends gather each spring and summer in her coastal house in Crimea, and
she treats everyone with unfailing love and care. The storyline moves between the present, one
of the many summers at Medeia’s house (sometime in the 1970s), and key events in the family’s
past. There are two love triangles in the book: Medeia’s sister Aleksandra (Sandra) seduces her
husband and gives birth to Nika, and many years later Nika and her niece Masha fall in love
with the womanizer Valerii Butonov. The latter love drama ends with Masha’s suicide. Medeia
is born in 1900, and as the story progresses, we learn details of her and her family’s life
throughout the 20th century with its wars, revolutions, deportation of the Crimean Tatars, etc.
The narrator tells Medeia’s story from a third-person omniscient perspective that shifts to the
first-person only once, towards the end of the book. From a short epilogue, one learns that the
narrator’s husband is related to Medeia and together they were among the frequent guests at her
Crimean house. Their last visit happens in 1995 when Medeia has long been dead. The
description of this visit retrospectively gives the whole fictional story more credibility. Realia
found in the novel describe Russian life of various historical periods: the years before the
Revolution, the Civil War, the early turbulent years of the Soviet era, as well as the late Soviet
period.
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5 Methodology 5.1 Unit of comparative analysis In Descriptive Translation Studies — and Beyond (2012), Gideon Toury points out that,
regardless of how much one attempts to regard the text as the ultimate unit of analysis in
translation studies, it is unfeasible unless both ST and TT are broken down to smaller, lower-
level segments (Toury 2012: 115). Focusing on small segments is also justified by our
understanding of translation process: it is a series of operations which “presuppose the
decomposition of the texts” (ibid). He further suggests that the boundaries of the unit chosen
for a comparative study largely depend on how we as scholars reconstruct the specific
translation act. If we have reasons to assume that a transfer operation happened at the level of
phrase, then a SL phrase and its counterpart in the TT may become a unit of analysis.
The present work focuses on individual lexical items, so the question arises whether
such a small segment can be a valid object of analysis in translation studies. There is no denying
the fact that the act of translation more often than not involves transfer of collocations rather
than individual words:
RU ST: (...) а я ною, что умираю от жары и хочу пить. (MS)
NO TT: (...) men jeg bare gnåler om at jeg dør av varme og er så tørst.
EN TT: (...) and I’m whining that I’m dying of heat and thirst.
In this utterance, the original Russian phrase “хочу пить” is not rendered literally to Norwegian
or English as “jeg vil drikke” or “I want to drink”. Instead, the Norwegian TT features a
collocation more typical for this situation — “jeg er tørst” (I am thirsty), while the English
translator restructures the whole clause and links thirst to the other phrase within it — “I’m
dying of”. This simple example demonstrates the non-verbatim nature of translation. How then
can we justify a study of realia — individual words and fixed expressions — in translation?
The main argument in favor of this sort of study is that, despite being part of possible
collocations in the SL, realia cannot be easily included in any TL collocations for the simple
reason that there are no readily available counterparts for realia in the TL. As translation-
resistant elements, they force a translator to go right down to the level of lexical items in the
decomposition process. In other words, when comparing an SL utterance featuring a realia with
its TL solution, I attempt to reconstruct a translation process and establish a translation unit. I
then infer that the translator probably had to perform a transfer operation at the lexical level,
because the SL lexical item does not have an established counterpart in the TL. While a number
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of contextual nuances might still have influenced the translator’s decision-making in each
specific case, this conclusion allows me to regard realia and their translation solutions as a
warranted unit of comparative analysis.
Describing the methodology of determining “coupled pairs” (or “problem plus
solution”), Toury suggests that these have dynamic boundaries and are text-specific (Toury
2012). He also emphasizes that when mapping translation solutions on the original text
segments, coupled pairs are established “in a mutually determining way” (Toury 2012: 120).
What this implies is that a researcher might need to go back and forth between the ST and TT
to properly identify a coupled pair. The main principle in this process is formulated as follows:
Thus, the analyst will go about establishing a segment of a target text, for which it would be
possible to claim that — beyond its boundaries — there are no leftovers of the solution to a
translation problem which is represented by one of the source text’s segments, whether similar
or different in rank and scope (Toury 1995: 78–79).
Here is how this “no-leftover” principle has been applied to my data:
RU ST: Подоспело предложение: при Четвертом управлении организовывали
реабилитационный центр, и Бутонов был одним из претендентов на заведование. (LUM)
NO TT: Det var akkurat i rett tid at han fikk en invitasjon: Det skulle organiseres et helse- og
rehabiliteringssenter for KGBs Fjerde kontor, og Butonov var en av kandidatene til å bli leder der.
Endnote: KGB’s Fjerde kontor — avdeling for politisk etterretning i KGB (KGB Fourth Office —
Department of Political Intelligence in the KGB)
EN TT: A timely offer had materialized: a rehabilitation center was being set up for high-ranking
Communist Party and government officials and their families, and Butonov was a likely candidate to
manage it.
In the ST utterance above, we see the Soviet realia Четвертое управление. The Norwegian
rendering involves a calque — Fjerde kontor (Forth Office) — and a short specification, KGBs,
a rather well-known Soviet realia which premodifies the calque and clarifies the origin of the
Forth Office. As the endnote cited above provides additional information about the institution
mentioned in the main text, this paratextual element is considered part of the translation solution.
Thus, the coupled pair for the Russian ST and Norwegian TT is:
Четвертое управление → KGBs Fjerde kontor + avdeling for politisk etterretning i KGB
When it comes to the English solution, instead of calquing and adding an extratextual
comment, the translator opts for a rather detailed paraphrase: a rehabilitation center is not
arranged for the obscure Forth Office, but for high-ranking Communist Party and government
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officials and their families. This long paraphrase is regarded as a single solution for the original
fixed expression. The coupled pair for the Russian ST and English TT is:
Четвертое управление → high-ranking Communist Party and government officials and their families
When establishing coupled pairs, I pay close attention to how realia are treated in the
target texts and include not only all the intratextual elements which can be related to the original
expression, but also paratextual elements. The coupled pairs determined in this manner are then
submitted to further comparative analysis where I attempt to establish the type of relations
between the members of each coupled pair. In other words, I seek to identify translation shifts
which occur in the TL treatment of realia.
5.2 Retrieval of data Descriptive translation studies, which are concerned with what translation actually is rather than
what it should be like, requires a systematic approach to the collection of data. According to
Toury’s descriptive model, when examining patterns in a translators’ work — be it “strategies”,
“regularities” or “norms” — one cannot describe them based on “a random selection of
observations” (Baker 2011b: 190), i.e. an arbitrary set of data. Instead, generalizations should
be made about a particular class of phenomena, and the data illustrating these phenomena
should be extracted from a text or a number of texts on a non-selective basis (Toury 2012). In
this respect, my work satisfies Toury’s requirements for descriptive studies as I attempt to do
precisely this — to examine patterns in the translators’ solutions for a single translation problem
— realia.
Contrary to Toury’s target-oriented methodology, my analysis starts with the source
texts. Realia were first retrieved from the six Russian novels: through close reading, I identified
words and fixed expressions that fit my definition of realia specified in Section 3.6. It is
important to keep in mind though, that, since the criteria for identifying realia in a text are not
too strict and there are grey areas, the researcher’s judgment remains somewhat interpretive
rather than completely objective. Each lexical item identified as a realia was included in my list
and checked for other occurrences within the text. If a realia occurs many times throughout the
novel, only three occurrences of the same realia within this text were selected. The first
occurrence was always included in my data because its treatment may be significant for the
subsequent occurrences (for instance, if a loanword is introduced with an intratextual
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specification or a footnote the first time and not explained further in the text). The other two
occurrences were selected at random through a random number generator.31 Limiting the
number of occurrences was necessary to avoid situations where frequently used realia skew the
data.
The next step in the data retrieval was to establish translation solutions for each lexical
item found in the ST. As specified in the Section 4.2, some of the target texts selected for the
present study are available in the RuN Corpus, while others could be accessed in the electronic
form,32 which facilitates retrieving all the occurrences of the same word and establishing
coupled pairs in the ST and TT. In addition to that, the paper editions of the translations were
looked at in order to examine paratextual elements (footnotes, endnotes etc.) which may be part
of certain translation procedures. Coupled pairs were identified in accordance with Toury’s
guideline that “beyond the boundaries of a target segment no leftover of the ‘solution’ to a
certain ‘problem’, posed by a corresponding segment of the SL text, will be present” (Toury
2012: 117).
A few notes should be made on what sort of lexical items were excluded from my data.
First, the most obvious translation errors were dismissed. Here is one example of mistranslation:
RU ST: (...) я взял денег (...), сходил на Мясницкую и купил свежих саек, замечательной
московской ветчины и газет. (BA)
NO TT: (...) så jeg hadde tatt med meg penger (...), gått på Mjasnitskaja og hadde kjøpt fersk loff, litt av
den storartede skinken de har i Moskva, samt ferske aviser.
EN TT: (...) I took some money (...), went to Myasnitskaya Street and bought fresh cod, some remarkable
Moscow ham and newspapers.
The mistranslation in the English TT (cod) originates in homonymy: the Russian word сайка
does mean both a small bread roll and a type of fish. However, the interpretation of саек as
bread is strongly supported both by the context (the character is more likely to buy bread and
ham for a snack than fish and ham) and by the grammatical form of the word (in Russian, it is
not typical to refer to fish in plural when purchasing it: one does not say я купил лососей, etc.).
Thus, the Russian–English coupled pair is not included in my data.
The second type of lexical items that was excluded from my data are cases in which one
of the TLs has a formal correspondent of the Russian realia, i.e. lexical item with the same
31 https://www.random.org/ 32 One exception is the English translation of Venerin volos which exists only in a paper version and was examined
manually.
93
meaning. To put it differently: if a Russian word was found to be a realia in relation to the one
TL but not to the other, only the former was examined. For instance, the outdated position of
компаньонка (a woman who was hired in a manor house for entertainment or escort of ladies)
corresponds to the English companion in the sense of “a person, usually a woman, employed to
live with and assist another”. 33 Norwegian, however, does not have a readily available
counterpart to render this Russian word. Only the Russian–Norwegian coupled pair was
therefore included in my data.
A slightly different case is when a SL lexical item is in fact culture-specific in relation
to both TLs, but has “Official Equivalents”, to use Pedersen’s term (Pedersen 2011). This is “a
special status given to a translation solution by being authenticated through official decision or
entrenchment” (Pedersen 2011: 240). By official decision he means one made by “people in
authority” and illustrates this case with conversion of measurements. Thus, feet converted to
meters would be an example of Official Equivalent, according to Pedersen. By entrenchment
the scholar means “a standard translation”, the equivalent “you find in standard bilingual
dictionary” (ibid: 98). The example he uses is the Statue of Liberty always rendered as
Frihedsgudinen in Danish. Identifying the use of Official Equivalent as a separate translation
procedure is motivated by the fact that translators in this case do not have a real choice: they
opt for a solution supported by a long-standing tradition. Examples of Official Equivalents are
particularly numerous among proper names: toponyms, anthroponyms, brand names, titles,
names of famous fictional characters, etc. — and this is precisely the sort of data that is
extensively examined in Pedersen’s work.
I do not use the term “Official Equivalent” in my classification of translation procedures
(see Section 5.3.2). My typology is based on how the original lexical items change in meaning
and form when transferred to the TT, and the notion of “Official Equivalent” as such does not
say anything about semantic or formal modifications. But most importantly, even if a “standard
translation” is registered in a bilingual dictionary, this solution is not imperative, and translators
still have freedom to choose a different one.
However, one issue that is related to Pedersen’s “Official Equivalents” is familiarity of
loanwords discussed in Section 3.9.2 (on temporal typology). Those source-language realia
which not only have entered the target language as loanwords but have become well assimilated
and in common use in that language, may not fit the definition of realia. An example that has
been mentioned is vodka which has become a regular, stylistically unmarked word in many
33 https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/companion
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languages, albeit retaining its association with Russia. I have argued that despite being a well-
integrated lexical item in both Norwegian and English, водка may still receive domesticating
treatment (e.g., spirits, brandy were found in an old translation of Anna Karenina). In
contemporary literary translation, however, it is difficult to imagine a situation where one would
render водка as anything else but vodka. Since one of the objectives of my study is to perform
a quantitative analysis and Retention is ranked the highest on my continuum of
domestication/foreignization, I needed to make an attempt to exclude the most obvious cases
of realia having “established counterparts” in the TL.
The first step in this selection process was to establish which loanwords rendering
Russian realia have made their way into Norwegian and English monolingual dictionaries.
Compared to the total number of extracted realia, examples are not many: tsar,
bolshevik/bolsjevik, intelligentsia, samovar, pirog, kvas, steppe, tundra, dacha, Tungus, etc.
Further, I decided to check the frequency of each of these loanwords in English and Norwegian
monolingual corpora, because the mere fact of inclusion in a dictionary does not characterize a
lexical item as commonly known. The corpora that have been used are Oslo-korpus, bokmål
(18.5 mln words), Norsk Aviskorpus (48 mln words), British National Corpus (100 mln words)
and Corpus of Contemporary American English (560 mln words). As these corpora are of
different sizes, I had to normalize the obtained frequencies, i.e. to calculate the frequencies per
the same number of words (1 mln). Further, I had to establish the demarcation line, which was
set at the normalized frequency 2. The results from two monolingual corpora were compared
for each TL. All the loanwords which had the frequency above 2 in at least one monolingual
corpus were considered well-assimilated in the TL and hence most likely familiar to the average
TL reader. This demarcation is of course somewhat arbitrary. Below is the list of such
loanwords for Norwegian and English:
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Table 4. Loanwords borrowed from Russian into English and Norwegian with the normalized
frequency above 2 per 1 mln.
Norwegian English
tsar
vodka
sovjet/sovjetisk
tsjetsjener/tsjetsjensk
rubel
tsar/czar
vodka
Soviet
Chechen
ruble/rouble
Bolshevik
intelligentsia
Cossack
tundra
As Table 4 demonstrates, there are more English words in this category than Norwegian words.
However, I have made a decision to exclude only overlapping lexical items from my data.
Another category of realia which is difficult to justify as an object of lexical study in
translation is those which are part of phraseological expressions and other set expressions,
because in such cases it is highly unlikely that a translator would treat a realia word as an
individual translation unit. Examples found in my data are:
• пошла писать губерния (idiom meaning “a commotion began”),
• квасной патриотизм (idiom meaning “jingoism”),
• лапти кидать (slang idiom meaning “to run away, to escape”),
• путаник ворвался в гостиную и съел вареник (part of a spelling memo for Russian
schoolchildren),
• etc.
The probability that phrases like those cited above will be treated word-by-word is very small.
Thus, translation shifts should be examined at the level of phrase or clause. However, there are
other, more transparent, idiomatic expressions, set expressions and quotations which, if
translated verbatim, might make sense in the TL:
• мужик напьется — с барином дерется, проспится — свиньи боится (proverb),
• сяду на пенек, съем пирожок (a well-known recurrent line from a Russian fairy tale),
• получать копейки (idiom),
• за версту видно (idiom).
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The present study does not aim at developing a nuanced classification of various idiomatic and
other fixed expressions in which realia may be found. Thus, the main operational question that
I have used to decide whether or not to include an expression featuring realia in my data is this:
Is the original expression of such nature that, if translated word-by-word, it will result in a
relatively transparent utterance? If not (like лапти кидать), I dismiss it.
Finally, in my typology of shifts (see more in Section 5.3.2), I discuss the translation
procedure Omission as opposed to non-translation and maintain that there is a significant
difference between these phenomena. If a whole sentence or paragraph is missing from the
translation and, as a result, no coupled pair can be established for the SL and TL utterances, it
is termed non-translation. In case of Omission, only part of a sentence containing realia is
missing from the TT.
It is quite difficult to reach objectivity when deciding what to include in a study of realia
and what not. Apart from problems with the definition of realia, which leaves room for
interpretation, there are also other borderline cases where some degree of uncertainty is
inevitable and subjective judgement comes into play. To sum up, here are the five types of cases
that were excluded from my data:
• cases of non-translation;
• clear cases of mistranslation;
• cases in which one of the TLs has a formal correspondent of the Russian realia;
• realia that were borrowed into the TL a while ago and have well-entrenched translation
solutions;
• realia featuring in non-transparent idiomatic (or other) expressions which are unlikely
to be translated verbatim.
In total, 1191 coupled pairs were identified for the Russian STs and Norwegian TTs and
1190 — for the Russian STs and English TTs. Coupled pairs were extracted in a contextualized
form, i.e. a minimal context of one to three sentences for both ST realia and TT solution was
retrieved. This is done to provide data for the qualitative part of my study where I analyze
specific solutions in context.
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5.3 Classification of translation shifts 5.3.1 Universal typologies and the notion of invariance In his latest work, Toury (2012: 80) suggests that, although he has been growing suspicious of the
quest for translation “universals”, the inevitability of shifts remains “one of the best candidates to
serve as a translation universal”. Toury goes on to add that shifts may be “the only real” universal
(ibid). As was discussed above, translation procedures/shifts are specific changes which may be
observed at the micro-level when comparing the ST with the TT. They result from “attempts to deal
with systemic differences” in the course of semiotic transfer (Bakker et al. 2011: 269), but the outcome
of this transfer process can never be fully predicted. Close examination and classification of shifts is
the first step towards making more general statements about overall translation strategies and
regularities.
It stands to reason that any attempt to classify shifts entails a discussion of the concept of
invariant as the very notion of shift usually implies that something remains intact while other elements
become transformed. Kitty van Leuven-Zwart (1989: 156), when describing her comparative model
for translation analysis, stresses the importance of the concept of relationship. She refers to structural
semantics and points out that two entities may only be regarded as related when they have both
“aspects of conjunction (similarity) and of disjunction (dissimilarity)” (ibid). In other words, before
one can discover differences, it should be established what the two related items have in common.
Bakker et al. (2011: 269–271) distinguish between two views on invariance in translation
studies: invariance defined “prior” to translation (actual or ideal) and invariance defined “after”
translation. Accordingly, two types of definitions of invariant may be developed. In the first case
invariant would be viewed as “a necessary condition to be met before the transfer operation can qualify
as translation” (ibid: 269). This will entail a prescriptive definition of shift — either as undesirable
deviations from some sort of translation ideal or as required, unavoidable changes resulting from
systemic differences between the SL and TL. This view on shifts is often expressed in normative
(positive or negative) statements and is characteristic of the applied branches of translation studies
such as translation training and translation criticism.
If, on the other hand, invariant is defined after translation, shifts are accordingly identified
post factum. They are reconstructed by analyzing existing translations within the descriptive paradigm.
Popovič (1970: 79) in his definition of shifts attempts to show how shits are identified: “All that
appears as new with respect to the original, or fails to appear where it might have been expected, may
be interpreted as a shift”. To what extent this rather broad definition is operational, remains an open
question. As Bakker et al. (2011: 271) point out, on the one hand, it takes into account a relationship
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between the ST and the TT (“new with respect to the original”), and on the other hand, it deals with
the reception of the TT in the target system (“where it might have been expected”). As a result, what
may appear as a lack of shift on the textual level, might still be regarded as a shift in terms of the target
audience expectations. Furthermore, even when, for the purpose of a descriptive analysis, we choose
to focus only on the textual understanding of shifts (“new with respect to the original”), it remains
rather difficult to objectively identify and categorize shifts. Hence, Popovič’s careful formulation —
“may be interpreted as a shift”.
Before discussing the more specialized typologies of shifts, I would like to give an account of
some early general taxonomies. In the 1950–1960s, with the advent of systematic linguistic
approaches to translation, several attempts were made to develop typologies of shifts. Both Catford
(1965) and Vinay and Darbelnet’s (1958/1995) put forward universal classifications that aimed at
covering all linguistic levels.
Catford was the first one to introduce the very notion of shift. As shown in Section 2.2, he
makes a distinction between textual equivalence and formal correspondence. While textual
equivalence as an empirical phenomenon is identified ad hoc by the translator/scholar for specific ST
and TT units, formal equivalence is hypothetically established based on linguistic competence. Formal
correspondent is, in Catford’s words, “any TL category (unit, class, structure, element of structure,
etc.) which can be said to occupy, as nearly as possible, the ‘same’ place in the ‘economy’ of the TL
as the given SL category occupies in the SL” (Catford 1965: 27). Catford further points out that, since
every language is a unique system, formal correspondence is in most cases approximate (ibid).
If we attempt to apply Catford’s notions to lexis, the formal correspondents of the ST lexical
items can be said to be summarized in bilingual dictionaries. As words often have multiple meanings,
any decontextualized SL lexical item might have multiple TL formal correspondents. For instance,
Russian чай may have both tea and tea drinking (or tea party) as its formal correspondents in English.
However, it is not a given that those standard correspondents will be used in translation. An example
from my data could illustrate this point:
RU ST: (...) мадемуазель охотно выпила с нами чаю и отдала должное замечательным филипповским
пряникам. (BA)
EN TT: (...) Mademoiselle was glad to take coffee with us and she did justice to Filippov’s admirable honey
cakes.
As the actual English translation of чай (чай → coffee) diverges from the formal, out-of-context
correspondent (tea), a shift is identified. In other words, the invariant of comparison in Catford’s
model is formal correspondence. Consequently, shifts are defined as “departures from formal
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correspondence in the process of going from the SL to the TL” (ibid: 73). As far as the actual
classification is concerned, Catford distinguishes between two major categories — level shifts and
category shifts — and a number of subcategories under the latter (structure shifts, class shifts, unit
shifts and intra-system shifts), which are identified depending on how the TT segments relate to the
invariant of comparison (ibid: 73–82).
Apart from having too few categories covering too many translation phenomena, there is one
more feature of this typology that makes it problematic when realia are in focus. Although Catford
acknowledges “limits of translatability” and describes several cases of what he refers to as linguistic
and cultural untranslatability (ibid: 93–103), he does not include a category accounting for those cases
in his model. The above example may illustrate this issue: in the TT–ST pair пряник → honey cake,
the textual equivalent of пряник is honey cake, but what is the English formal correspondent of пряник?
Within the described framework, the translation of пряник could perhaps be classified as a
type of category shift — more specifically, a unit shift (change of rank): if the SL item is a bare noun,
it is expected to be translated as a non-modified noun, too. The modified noun in the TT (honey cake)
indicates that a unit shift has taken place (noun → phrase). However, identifying this translation barely
as a unit shift will not tell us much about the semantic transformation involved.
Another influential early attempt to classify shifts/procedures is Vinay and Darbelnet
1958/1995. In their classic model, Vinay and Darbelnet (1958/1995: 30–42) list seven translation
procedures arranged according to the degree of complexity and divided into two main groups: direct,
or source-oriented, procedures (borrowing, calque, literal translation) and oblique, or target-oriented,
procedures (transposition, modulation, equivalence, adaptation). According to the scholars, all these
procedures could be identified on three linguistic levels: lexis, syntactic structures and message.
Without making it explicit, Vinay and Darbelnet seem to take the meaning and form (or structure) of
the SL item as their invariant of comparison: the more radical the change of meaning and form, the
more oblique the translation. In this model, special attention is paid to translation problems which
result from a lack of structural and conceptual parallelism between SL and TL.
Although Vinay and Darbelnet, unlike Catford, worked with a specific language pair (French
and English), they had a similar goal — to design a simple, but comprehensive typology that would
be applicable to many language pairs and account for all translation shifts. Apart from explicitly
addressing many translation problems (or lacunas as they term it), an important feature that
differentiates Vinay and Darbelnet’s typology from Catford’s typology is that the former is based on
a large body of empirical data while Catford often makes use of constructed examples.
Dissatisfied with the degree of elaboration of the Catford’s and Vinay and Darbelnet’s
influential models, translation scholars in the 1980s and 1990s proposed more detailed universal
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typologies (e.g. Chesterman 1997, van Leuven-Zwart 1989, 1990). Using Vinay and Darbelnet’s
model as a starting point, van Leuven-Zwart adopts Catford’s key notion of shift and makes the use
of invariance in her methodology more explicit in her 1989–1990 examination of literary translations.
Working within the Descriptive Paradigm, she seeks the most accurate methodology possible for
examining shifts. The invariant of comparison in her model is architranseme (ATR) which is identified
by comparing the ST and TT units and finding the common denominator (van Leuven-Zwart 1989:
157). Notably, she argues that a universal typology of shifts has to take into account various linguistic
levels: syntactic, semantic, stylistic and pragmatic (ibid: 153–154). She further bases her elaborate
classification on the type of relationship that is found between the ATR on the one hand and the SL
and TL textual units (transemes) on the other hand. If the compared transemes and the ATR do not
correspond, a shift is posited.
There are a few issues that, I believe, make this model unsuited for my purposes. First of all,
whereas van Leuven-Zwart examines whole text excerpts which she divides into a number of
transemes — comprehensible textual units, consisting of phrases and clauses (ibid: 155–156) — I focus
only on individual lexical items. As a result, the notion of transeme would be difficult to employ in
my study. Accordingly, the concept of architranseme would prove problematic unless significantly
adjusted. Despite being complex and comprehensive, the model lacks the degree of elaboration
required for analyzing the specific translation problem — realia. In van Leuven-Zwart’s methodology,
a culture-specific word and its rendering would be identified as an “aspect of disjunction” in the
compared transemes and classified as a case of semantic/stylistic modulation with virtually no further
elaboration because the analysis is carried out at a higher rank. Another issue is van Leuven-Zwart’s
lack of interest in the paratext — the translator’s footnotes and endnotes which complement the textual
solutions and should be, in my view, taken into account in translation analysis. Nevertheless, van
Leuven-Zwart’s attempt to develop a detailed, empirically-based, purely descriptive typology with
clear criteria set a new standard for classifications of shifts.
Like van Leuven-Zwart, in an attempt to develop a universal classification, Andrew
Chesterman (1997) considers different perspectives in the analysis of shifts. He makes a basic
distinction between comprehension and production strategies. 34 According to him, production
strategies are the results of comprehension strategies and refer to different ways in which “the
translator manipulates the linguistic material in order to produce an appropriate target text”
(Chesterman 1997: 92). In his work, Chesterman scrutinizes only production strategies, but in defining
them, he draws on a cognitive (process-based) explanation: “(…) if you are not satisfied with the
34 As I mentioned earlier, by strategy Chesterman often means what I call procedure or shift.
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target version that comes immediately to mind — because it seems ungrammatical, or semantically
odd, or pragmatically weak, or whatever — then change something in it” (ibid). This statement
suggests the perspective of a translator, not one of an analyst of translation — hence, the lexicon
pertaining to the process of translation (to be not satisfied, to come to mind, to change). Nevertheless,
Chesterman emphasizes that a classification of strategies should be a linguistic or text-linguistic one
(rather than a cognitive one) if it is to be developed from the perspective of a product-oriented
researcher.
Chesterman’s classification of strategies (procedures) is among the most elaborate ones in
translation studies. It comprises three large groups: syntactic/grammatical strategies (which
manipulate form), semantic strategies (which manipulate meaning) and pragmatic strategies (which
manipulate what the author refers to as “the message itself”) (Chesterman 1997: 92–112). Each of
these groups consists of ten categories which, according to Chesterman, can be further divided into
more subcategories. An important characteristic of this typology is that it does not claim to be
exhaustive: it is open-ended and flexible in that it includes the category labeled as “other strategies”
which invites other scholars to adapt the typology to their specific needs and language pairs.
As far as the invariant of comparison is concerned, it can be said that each of the three groups
of strategies presupposes its own invariant. In the case of syntactic strategies, it is the form of ST items
in a very broad sense (from phonetic/graphic form or word class to grammatical categories, syntactic
functions, sentence structure, cohesion etc.). The semantic classification of strategies deals mostly
with lexical semantics and is based on various semantic relations between the ST and TT items
(synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, level of abstraction, etc.). The pragmatic group of categories is the
most manifold one. It deals with such diverse issues as cultural filtering, explicitness, coherence,
interpersonal relations, translator’s visibility, text layout, etc. What unites these strategies is that they
are all prompted by the information selection in the TT — “a selection that is governed by the
translator's knowledge of the prospective readership of the translation” (ibid: 107). They are often “the
result of a translator’s global decisions concerning the appropriate way to translate the text as a whole”
(ibid). It is not easy to identify the invariant of comparison when analyzing the ST and TT in terms of
pragmatics. It is equally difficult to give an example of a purely pragmatic shift. As Chesterman
acknowledges himself, pragmatic strategies normally incorporate syntactic and/or semantic ones
(ibid). In other words, pragmatic shifts are encountered when it is highly likely that a different
sociocultural context and a new readership have contributed to the ways the ST is being transformed.
The example above where Russian чай is rendered as coffee could be said to involve pragmatic in
addition to semantic transformation. Coffee is not a synonym for tea but could be regarded as a
“cultural synonym” (or functional substitute, in my terminology).
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Chesterman emphasizes that his typology is tripartite merely for conceptual and
methodological reasons: in actual practice, various types of shifts overlap and co-occur. The example
above has illustrated this point. Consider another culture-bound example — the frequent rendering of
Russian валенки as felt boots in English translations. It may be said that this rendering involves all
three sorts of shifts — syntactic, semantic and pragmatic. In terms of form, it manifests what both
Catford and Chesterman refer to as a unit shift (word → phrase). Further, there is a semantic change:
the full meaning of валенки (traditional Russian winter boots with high tops made of felt and worn
mostly in rural areas) is only partly covered. As for pragmatics, guided by the knowledge of the
prospective readership and the role of the realia in a given context, the translator chooses to explicate
only those features of the object which appear relevant (in our case, its material and function) and
omits others (such as rustic inelegant connotations and local color).
Chesterman’s typology is an important attempt to provide conceptual tools for a descriptive
analysis of translation. However, like other universal typologies, it is not the most suitable model for
my purposes. On the one hand, it includes many shifts that are not relevant to my data; on the other
hand, it lacks sufficient elaboration in those categories which are applicable to the examination of
realia.
In his recent discussion of shifts, Toury (2012: 113) criticizes his own earlier suggestion
(Toury 1980: 112–121) of using the hypothetical construct of “adequate translation” as the invariant
of a comparative study. “Adequate translation” is understood as “a translation which realizes in the
target language the textual relationships of a source text with no breach of its own [basic] linguistic
system” (Even-Zohar 1975: 43, translated and quoted by Toury 2012: 79). Although the identification
of shifts remains an important part in his descriptive model, Toury now seems to admit that there
cannot be a universal tertium comparationis. Instead, he propagates “uncovering those principles
which are relevant to a particular case” (Toury 2012: 111). Nevertheless, Toury does not put aside the
notion of invariance altogether as he acknowledges that, in establishing shifts, invariance remains the
focal concept. He further assumes that the invariant may be found both at the purely linguistic (i.e.
habitual) and textual (ad hoc) levels (ibid: 111–112). He does not, however, offer any specific model
for identifying invariance and shifts leaving this task to the theoretical branch of translation studies.
Following Toury, I will argue that the identification of the invariant is crucial in building a
classification of shifts and depends on a number of factors which should be considered for each
specific research. Among these are: the type of the translation problem in question, the purpose and
orientation of research (e.g. prescriptive versus descriptive paradigm), the relations between SL and
TL (whether and how they are genetically related), etc. Furthermore, I will maintain that, in translation
studies, the notion of invariant remains to a certain extent an ideal and elusive concept which is
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difficult to operationalize. This is largely due to the fact that we compare phenomena from different
linguistic systems in which linguistic signs are not necessarily arranged in the same kinds of
hierarchies.
5.3.2 Specialized typologies of translation shifts Before I make an attempt to specify the criteria for my own classification of shifts with regard to realia,
I would like to briefly discuss a number of more specialized typologies — the ones that have been
developed specifically for examining culture-bound problems in translation.
Based on the study of various translation solutions adopted by translators when dealing with
cultural issues, culture-oriented scholars have proposed a number of specialized typologies for those
solutions (Aixela 1996, Florin 1993, Leppihalme 1994, 2001, Nedergaard-Larsen 1993, Newmark
1981, Pedersen 2011, Vlakhov and Florin 1980, 1986/2012). As a rule, these are adaptations of more
generic typologies (often Vinay and Darbelnet’s 1953 classic typology) further developed and
adjusted to suit specific researchers’ purposes. Following the universal classifications pattern, the
more specialized typologies often group translation procedures under two large categories: where
Vinay and Darbelnet had direct and oblique translation procedures, Aixela (1996) has two major
opposed groups called conservation and substitution, Pedersen (2011) refers to source-oriented and
target-oriented procedures, and Vlakhov and Florin (1986/2012) distinguish between
transcription/transliteration and translation proper. Yet, no scholar fails to acknowledge that this
distinction is an approximation and all the translation procedures described exist on a continuum.
Apart from using different terms for the two major oppositions, the classifications vary in the
way they label specific procedures. The rich terminological diversity notwithstanding, these
typologies are largely comparable. All of them include:
• a category for preserving the SL item (also referred to as borrowing, conservation, direct
transfer, retention, loan, transcription/transliteration);
• a category covering “loan translation” (calque, half-calque, neologism, direct translation);
• a category involving hypernymic and other types of paraphrasing (generalization,
superordinate term, paraphrase, explicitation, universalization, etc.);
• a procedure aiming at replacing the SL item with a TL item which is similar in function
(cultural adaptation, cultural substitution, cultural equivalent, functional analogue,
naturalization);
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• a category involving a fairly free paraphrase that may work only in the given context
(contextual translation, situational substitution, situational adaptation);
• and, finally, omission (or deletion) — a category that is regarded as a distinct translation
procedure by all the aforementioned scholars but Vlakhov and Florin.
In most typologies, the criteria they are based on are not clearly specified. However, it is often claimed
that the specific procedures are listed according to their proximity to one of the above-mentioned poles
of the continuum — from the most source-oriented solutions to more target-oriented ones. Aixela
explains the structure of his classification in a slightly different way: his translation procedures are
ordered “based on the degree of intercultural manipulation” (Aixela 1996: 60). If we were to
summarize the principles which underlie typical taxonomies of procedures for rendering culture-
specific items, it may be argued that they take into account all the three aspects discussed by
Chesterman (1997): formal, semantic and pragmatic. In other words, translation scholars attempt to
evaluate 1) whether certain formal qualities of the original lexical item are retained (phonetic/graphic,
structural); 2) how the semantic meaning of the ST item is modified; and, finally, 3) what kind of
pragmatic changes are made in view of the target audience, the new cultural context or the specific
textual context.
Another significant feature of the typologies that have culture-bound vocabulary in focus is
that most of them give consideration to paratextual elements, albeit to varying degrees. Some view
them as separate categories (e.g. Aixela’s 1996 extratextual gloss or Leppihalme’s 2001 addition);
others examine them as variations of other categories (Vlakhov and Florin 1986/2012) or a supplement
to the main categories (Newmark 1981); still others barely mention the role of paratext, as extratextual
gloss is a very rare procedure in their type of data — subtitles (Nedergaard-Larsen 1993, Pedersen
2011). As Pedersen aptly points out, whereas the main categories are presented in very similar ways
among different scholars, further subdivision depends on the data one uses: both the quantity and
diversity (Pedersen 2011: 73). It can be added that data medium and genres are also considered.
Clearly, if one examines audiovisual translation or translation of children’s books with no paratext, a
typology based on these data will differ to some extent from one that scrutinizes a number of fiction
novels for adults. The degree of elaboration with which a typology is created may also depend on its
purpose: for instance, Leppihalme (2001: 139) explicitly states in her work that she had pedagogical
considerations in mind: her intention was to develop a classification comprising a limited number of
clear-cut categories that would be useful to students writing their research reports on realia. Certainly,
scholars having a descriptive analysis as their primary goal, would not be troubled by such
considerations and hence would have no reason to oversimplify a typology of translation procedures.
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Finally, the specific language pair under examination might affect the way in which a specialized
typology is developed (e.g. a typology based on English–German translations might differ from one
based on English–Chinese data).
5.3.2 My typology of translation procedures for rendering realia In developing my typology of translation procedures, or shifts, I have chosen to follow the
prevailing trend of arranging them along a continuum of target- to source-orientation
(domestication and foreignization to use Venuti’s terms). The process of constructing the present
model has been twofold: on the theoretical level, various taxonomies of translation procedures
developed by other scholars have been analyzed to see how they may be adopted in my study; on
the empirical level, the coupled pairs retrieved from my data have been continuously examined
which has led to a number of adjustments and additions to the existing models. This sort of typology
has certain limitations: as it is based on a specific data sample and designed for exploration of a
specific translation problem, it will not necessarily have universal application. However, with some
modifications, the present model may be made applicable to other studies.
Since the present model is intended to be used to measure the degree of domestication and
foreignization of realia in specific translations, it should offer a quantifying tool — in other words,
some sort of grading system has to be assigned to the scale. This will be discussed in more detail
in Section 5.4.2.
When identifying and labelling translation shifts as well as arranging them along the
domestication–foreignization axis, I consider the following two criteria briefly discussed in Section
5.3.1:
formal: I look at whether certain formal aspects (phonetic/graphic, structural, but not
grammatical) of the original realia are preserved in the translation. If the rendering bears some
formal resemblance to the original lexical item, the translation procedures can be identified as more
foreignizing.
semantic: I try to see how the meaning of the original realia is being transformed in the
translation — what semantic features are preserved, ignored or added. This involves a rather
complex and at times inevitably biased evaluation. As lexical meaning is always rooted in the
specific context — in other words, only some of the potential semantic features of the lexeme might
be actualized in a text — we have difficulty deciding whether the translator significantly altered
the intended meaning (e.g. when using a paraphrase) or simply retained the most relevant semantic
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elements ignoring the less relevant ones. Nevertheless, I have adopted the following principle in
my model: the more radical the change of meaning, the more domesticating the translation
procedures involving this change are said to be.
As has been discussed in the previous section, Chesterman (1997), apart from “mainly
syntactic” and “mainly semantic” strategies, identifies a special class of “mainly pragmatic”
strategies, at the same time pointing out that all the three groups overlap to some extent. By
pragmatic strategies he means “those which primarily have to do with the selection of information
in the TT, a selection that is governed by the translator’s knowledge of the prospective readership
of the translation” (Chesterman 1997: 107). Pragmatic changes, he further argues, are often “the
result of a translator’s global decisions concerning the appropriate way to translate the text as a
whole” (ibid). If we consider realia as a translation problem in these terms, it may be said that all
translation procedures used for rendering realia involve the pragmatic aspect — their choice is
invariably “governed by the translator’s knowledge of the prospective readership of the translation”
and they are all manifestations of the translator’s global strategies (domestication vs.
foreignization). Therefore, I find it superfluous to identify pragmatic changes as a separate category
or to use pragmatic parameters as a criterion for my classification. Instead, when examining various
translation shifts, I will discuss, among other things, the translator’s possible considerations
governing the choice of a translation solution and its possible impact on the TT readership.
On the scale developed for this study, the translation shifts range from domestication to
foreignization (see Section 5.4.2). In my typology, they will be discussed in reverse order: from
the most foreignizing ones as being the most straightforward to the most domesticating ones as
involving significant formal and semantic changes. The suggested typology could be presented in
its concise form as follows:
Foreignization Shifts
1. Retention (single loanword);
2. Retention with Extratextual Specification;
3. Retention with Intratextual Short Specification;
4. Retention with Intratextual Detailed Specification;
5. Loan Translation (full or partial calque);
6. Loan Translation with Extratextual Specification;
7. Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification.
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Domestication Shifts
8. Explicitation by Extended Paraphrase;
9. Explicitation by Short Paraphrase (hypernym + modifier);
10. Explicitation by Hypernym;
11. *Stylistic Adaptation;
12. Functional Substitution;
13. Contextual Substitution;
14. Omission.
In what follows, each translation shift will be discussed in some detail and illustrated by examples
from the Russian–Norwegian and Russian–English translations that constitute my data. Potential
pros and cons of each procedure will also be considered.
5.3.2.1 Retention Like most translation procedures typologies, mine starts with the most foreignizing and
straightforward solution to overcome a lexical gap. Following Leppihalme (1994, 2001) and
Pedersen (2011), I have chosen to refer to it as Retention. When using this procedure, a translator
attempts to retain the graphic/phonetic form of the original lexical item. In the case of translations
from Russian to any language using the Latin alphabet, Russian realia are transliterated — that is,
certain phonetic nuances are disregarded when a word is rendered with the Latin characters. For
instance, the Russian word косоворотка will be transliterated as kosovorotka in English and
Norwegian, rather than transcribed as kasavarotka, which would be a closer, if not completely
accurate, representation of the vowel reduction in this word. The Russian letters which are
particularly difficult to transliterate might be given different renderings by different translators:
борщ might be conveyed as borscht or borshch in English and as borsj or borsjtsj in Norwegian.
In the absence of any additional information (when a given transliterated word is not further
explained within or outside of the text), the meaning of the borrowed realia might be perceived as
relatively clear, somewhat obscure or even downright cryptic. Depending on the perceived degree
of transparency of the realia, the translator presumably considers the following:
1) The SL realia is assumed to be relatively known outside of the SL community: at the very
least, it is recorded in the TL monolingual dictionaries, and its frequency in a TL corpus is
sufficiently high (see Section 5.2). Hence, if in doubt, the reader may always look up the relevant
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lexical item in a reference book or electronic resource. Examples of Russian realia of this type
include: царь, водка, большевик, рубль, копейка, Совет,35 etc.:
RU ST: Лазаревский попытался их примирить, перевел разговор на календарь, что совсем неразумно
отменять введенный большевиками григорианский календарь. (MS)
NO TT: Lazarevskij forsøkte å forsone kamphanene og fikk samtalen over på kalenderen, han mente det var
fullstendig fornuftsstridig å avskaffe den gregorianske kalender som bolsjevikene har innført.
EN TT: Lazarevsky tried to make peace between them and shifted the conversation to the calendar, saying it
made no sense to abolish the Gregorian calendar introduced by the Bolsheviks.
Here, both English and Norwegian translators assume that the Russian realia большевики is
familiar to the potential readership and therefore does not require any further explanation. The
above example illustrates another important feature of the Retention: the SL lexical items are not
merely transliterated and modified to comply with the TL spelling rules (note the English
traditionally capitalized Bolsheviks) — they are also grammatically adapted to the TL norms. Both
bolsjevikene and the Bolsheviks are used in the appropriate TL definitive plural forms.
2) The SL realia is most likely not known outside of the SL community, but its meaning
could be to some extent inferred from the given context. This may be illustrated by the examples
below:
RU ST: Приехали на речку, устроились у костра, ели шашлыки, пили вино. (MS)
NO TT: De kom frem til elveosen, satte seg godt til rette rundt bålet, spiste sjasjlik og drakk vin.
EN TT: They got to a stream, set themselves up by a fire, ate shashlyk, and drank wine.
or
RU ST: После обеда он поспал часок в прохладной тени на бывшей оттоманке Шереметева, напился
совхозовского сухарного кваса, сходил в оранжерею и убедился, что теперь там все в полном порядке.
(MB)
NO TT: Etter middagen sov han en liten time i den svale skyggen på Sjeremetjevs tidligere ottoman, stillet
tørsten med kollektivbrukets kvas brygget på skonrokker, og gikk deretter innom drivhuset for åoverbevise seg
om at alt der var i sin skjønneste orden.
EN TT: After lunch he slept for an hour or so in the cool shade on the former Sheremetev ottoman, had a
refreshing drink of the farm’s kvass and slipped into the conservatory to make sure everything was alright.
In the given examples, the context clearly refers to a certain activity — eating in the first case and
drinking in the second one — so the reader may easily infer that sjasjlik/shashlyk is a type of food
35 As I explained in Section 5.2, the five such words with the highest frequency in TL corpora were excluded from my data.
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and kvas is a beverage. A closer reading of the excerpts may reveal further detail: one may venture
a guess that shashlyk is some sort of grilled food while kvas is a fermented beverage made with
bread (this is only revealed in the Norwegian translation though).
Another excerpt may illustrate how unknown realia may be more difficult to understand if
the context they appear in is less specific:
RU ST: Каждую весну мы ходим на ярмарку в Нахичевань. (...) Покупаем халву и апельсины, квас и
всякие сладости. (MS)
NO TT: Hver vår går vi på markedet i Nakhitsjevan-bydelen. Vi kjøper khalva og appelsiner på markedet, kvas
og alle slags slikkerier.
EN TT: Every spring we go to the bazaar in Nakhichevan. (...) We buy halvah and oranges, kvass and all kinds
of sweets.
Both халва and квас are rendered by Retention in a context that describes grocery shopping at the
market. From that one may infer that khalva/halvah and kvas/kvass are types of food or drink, most
likely treats, but it may be rather problematic to determine any specific features of these realia. It
is not even obvious from this context that kvas is in fact a beverage.
It is worth noting that the foreign origin of the borrowed word in the TT is sometimes
emphasized by some typographical means (most often by italics), as in the following example:
RU ST: Идти оставалось никак не более сотни саженей. (BA)
EN TT: There were no more than a hundred sazhens left to walk.
Here, the translator chooses not to specify what a sazhen is equal to, probably considering it not
particularly relevant (the context, after all, indicates that the distance is short), but uses italics to
indicate that this is a foreign unit of measurement. It should be borne in mind that in case of obsolete
words like сажень, the meaning of the lexical item in question may be obscure even to the ST
readers. Indeed, very few of today’s Russian-speaking readers, though having heard or read this
word many times before, would be able to tell how many meters a hundred sazhens are equivalent
to, so the confusion of the Russian and English readers is likely to be similar. Akunin’s novel
Koronatsiia is set in pre-revolutionary Russia, and the exact meaning of the numerous archaisms
used in this book, is perhaps not always as important as their ability to create a specific historical
flavor. This brings us to the third consideration that translators might have when choosing
Retention as a translation procedure for rendering realia:
3) The SL realia is most likely not known outside of the SL community, its meaning may or
may not be inferred from the given context, but the exotic (local and/or historical) flavor that it
may bring to the TT is perceived as its most significant function:
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RU TT: Везде в комнате были оставлены следы: недоеденные остатки блинчиков с творогом,
которые пробовали убийцы (…). (MS)
EN TT: Traces had been left everywhere in the room: the uneaten remains of cheese blinchiks, which the
murderers had tasted (…).
Although the word pancakes denoting a very similar dish could have been used, the translator
chooses to retain the original word, presumably to add some local flavor to the scene. Vinay and
Darbelnet (1958: 53) caution against overuse of the Retention procedure unless the translator is
seeking what they scornfully refer to as “cheap local color” (“la couleur locale à bon marché”).
What may be the result of the excessive use of this procedure is wittingly illustrated by a made-up
example in Fawcett (1997: 40): “The muzhik finished his kasha and kefir and jumped into his
kibitka”.
To summarize the potential pros and cons of Retention, it could be said that it retains the
original form of the lexical item (a fact that may trouble or excite the reader), introduces new
concepts to the receiving culture, and often adds some exotic color to the TT. However, unless the
realia was borrowed into the TL a while ago, its meaning may be unfamiliar to the TT readers and
revealed only through the relevant context.
5.3.2.2 Retention with Extratextual Specification A translator choosing Retention as a solution for rendering an unknown realia might find it
necessary to include some additional information revealing its meaning. This information could be
either incorporated in the text or given outside of the main text — in the paratext. I will first discuss
the latter case.
Retention with Extratextual Specification (RES) is a translation procedure which involves
using a loanword (or loan expression) combined with a description in the paratext (footnote,
endnote, glossary, etc.). If an explanatory note is given in the form of a footnote, a number or an
asterisk (or any other typographical symbol in superscript) in the main body of the text is common.
Endnotes are sometimes included without reference markers in the main text. As a result, the reader
might not even be aware of their existence.
Out of the six Norwegian translations analyzed in my study, three translations (made by
Dagfinn Foldøy) do not have any paratextual elements, while in the other three (by Marit Bjerkeng)
paratext is used consistently. Bjerkeng’s translations invariably include a section on Russian
naming traditions and name use and a section called ordforklaringer — a glossary where references
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to various historical and fictional figures, places and culture-bound objects and phenomena are
explained. In addition to a glossary, the Norwegian paratext in Sonetsjka includes a “presentation
of the author” and a translation of an interview with the author; in Medea og hennes barn a few
footnotes can be found; finally, Venushår has a translator’s note on the stylistics of the novel, a
translation of the German and Italian expressions used in the book as well as some allusions and
quotations explained. As for the six English translations of the selected books, half of them have
sparse paratextual elements: in Coronation, German and French phrases are given a translation; in
Maidenhair, German and Italian expressions are rendered in the footnotes and one acronym is
explained; and in Summer in Baden-Baden, three translator’s notes are found.
An illustration of a footnote can be found in the Norwegian translation of Ulitskaia’s Medeia
i ee deti:
RU ST: Хлеба у них четыре пуда изъяли, а у братьев и всего-то полтора. (LUM)
NO TT: Vi hadde tatt fire pud* korn fra dem, og fra brødrene hadde vi tatt bare halvannet pud.
Footnote: *16,38 kg, gammel russisk vektenhet (16,38 kg, old Russian weight unit).
An example of a more elaborate commentary in the footnote is found in the same novel:
RU ST: К тому же год назад патронесса облагодетельствовала ее дачным участком в поселке Малого
театра, но в одиночку дом было не поднять. (LUM)
NO TT: Dessuten hadde hennes gamle beskytterske året før gjort henne den tjenesten å skaffe henne en tomt til
datsja* i det området som Malyj teater disponerte, men å sette opp et hus alene kunne hun ikke klare.
Footnote: *Datsja — russisk “hytte”, ligner våre kolonihager, men ligger utenfor byen. Det viktigste med en
datsja har for alminnelige folk vært matauk, muligheten til å dyrke egne grønnsaker og egen frukt, men det er
også vanlig å ha en liten hytte til rekreasjonsformål (see English translation of the note on p. 47).
Here, not only the functions of дача in Russian culture are explained, the concept is also contrasted
with the Norwegian phenomenon — hytte, and дачный поселок is compared with urban
kolonihage.
Since a reference to a footnote is normally given only once, I will consider all the subsequent
occurrences of the same lexical item rendered with a loanword as cases of RES. However, if a
Retention occurs before a footnote is given, it is regarded as a case of Retention proper, because
the reader at this point in the text has no way of finding the explanatory note. For instance, in Medea
og hennes barn, rather inconsistently, the word datsja is presented for the first time in Chapter 1.
The word is emphasized with italics suggesting its foreign nature, but the explanation is not to be
found until Chapter 9, from which the example above is taken.
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It is also not quite clear according to which principles some lexical items are explained in the
footnotes while others — in the endnotes in this TT. Realia such as katisma, kutja, Komsomol,
samizdat, tsjeburek and others are all treated in the endnotes. For example:
tsjeburek — bakverk, en slags flat pirog av deig uten gjær, frityrstekt i olje og vanligvis med fyll av sterkt
krydret fårekjøttdeig (pastry, a kind of flat pirog of dough without yeast, deep-fried in oil and usually with a
filling of spicy mutton mince).
It is noteworthy that one realia — tsjeburek — is explained here through another, better known
Russian realia — pirog. Another example of this sort from the same glossary:
samsa — pasta med kjøttfyll, som store pelmeni (pasta with a meat filling, like big pelmeni).
In general, RES is regarded in my study as less foreignizing than Retention proper, because the
translator, in an attempt to convey the meaning of realia, does not merely rely on the context and/or
the reader’s competence, but gives the reader some additional information about the
object/phenomenon in question while at the same time retaining its original form. However, as it
is easy to overlook an extratextual comment, especially when there is no obvious reference to it, I
consider this translation procedure as slightly more foreignizing than the two discussed below —
Retention with Intratextual (Short or Detailed) Specification. Moreover, the very switch to a
metalevel, i.e. explaining a word, highlights its foreign nature.
5.3.2.3 Retention with Intratextual Short Specification Retention with Intratextual Short Specification (RISS) is an attempt to preserve the original form
of a realia while at the same time hinting at its meaning in an unobtrusive way. By “short
specification” I mean a single-word addition to the loanword describing some feature of the
relevant object/phenomenon. It may be illustrated by the following examples:
RU ST: На самом почетном месте, у царских врат, среди златотканых придворных мундиров и расшитых
жемчугом парадных платий белеют простые мужицкие рубахи и алеют скромные кокошники — это
доставленные из Костромской губернии потомки героического Ивана Сусанина, спасителя династии
Романовых. (BA)
EN TT: In the place of honour, by the royal gates, among the gold-embroidered court uniforms and pearl-
trimmed ceremonial dresses, there are simple white peasant shirts and modest crimson kokoshnik headdresses
– these are the descendants of the heroic Ivan Susanin, saviour of the Romanov dynasty, who have been brought
here from the province of Kostroma.
Here the retained realia, kokoshnik, is written in italics to stress its exotic nature and followed by a
hyperhym (headdress) which points to the meaning of kokoshnik. The short specification does not
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offer any further description of the form and function of the Russian кокошник — for instance, the
fact that is a headdress primarily worn for special occasions.
RU ST: Предложенная ему чашка бульона с куском вчерашней кулебяки и гречневая каша, сваренная
как будто в русской печи, произвели глубокое впечатление на Ивана Исаевича (…). (LUM)
EN TT: The bowl of broth he was offered with a piece of yesterday’s meat kulebyaka, and buckwheat porridge
which seemed to have been baked in a Russian stove, made a deep impression on Ivan Isaevich (…).
This example demonstrates a different kind of short specification: here, instead of resorting to a
superordinate with a more generic meaning (e.g. pie, pastry), the translator chooses to bring into
focus a common ingredient of the dish — meat (although, strictly speaking, the filling of Russian
кулебяка normally consists of several layers which might or might not include meat). Structurally,
the phrase meat kulebyaka is also different from the previous example: the loanword is a head-
word here, while in kokoshnik headdresses the loanword is a dependent.
However short, an intratextual specification gives the reader an opportunity to get a better
idea of the word’s meaning without interrupting the reading flow as is the case with footnotes and
endnotes.
In my data, RISS is more frequent in the English translations than in the Norwegian ones. It
may be, at least partly, explained by certain structural properties of the two languages. In English,
a loanword can be easily complemented with a noun premodifier (e.g. meat kulebyaka, irrigation
aryk, clay saklya) or function as a modifier for another, more generic, noun (e.g. lavash bread,
papirosa cigarettes). This is not the case in Norwegian — what in English typically forms a phrase,
in Norwegian must become a compound. This may result in rather strange-sounding neologisms
(kjøttkulebjaka, papirosasigaretter, etc.) which could impede reading. This is perhaps one of the
reasons why examples of RISS in the Norwegian part of my data are hard to come by. Here is one
of them:
RU ST: Я пробрался к рыжему текинцу Георгия Александровича, взял его под уздцы (…). (BA)
NO TT: Jeg tok meg frem til den rødlige Tekinz-hingsten til Georgij Aleksandrovitsj, tok tak i bislet (...).
The translator creates a compound and, in order to facilitate the reading process, uses a hyphen
separating the exotic lexical item from the Norwegian word.
5.3.2.4 Retention with Extratextual Detailed Specification Retention with Intratextual Detailed Specification (RIDS) is very similar to the previous translation
procedure. It differs only in the degree of elaboration: whereas in RISS a retained realia is combined
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with a single specifying word, in RIDS a more elaborate multiword specification is incorporated in
the text. This results in a more nuanced description of the unknown phenomenon, but also entails
a stylistic challenge — it is not easy to avoid rather cumbersome utterances when choosing this
translation solution. Consider the following example:
RU ST: Вот в парижской клинике положили малыша мне на живот, выдавили из груди молозиво, дали
ему возможность лизнуть, потом унесли. А я голодная — принесли какой-то бульон, а ужасно
захотелось щей. (MS)
NO TT: Der på klinikken i Paris la de barnet opp på maven min og klemte ut litt råmelk av det ene brystet, så
han fikk slikke det i seg, derefter bar de ham ut. Jeg var skrekkelig sulten — de kom med noe slags buljong,
men jeg hadde bare lyst på ordentlig stsji, på russisk kålsuppe.
As we can see, the Norwegian TT attempts to both retain the original form of the realia through
transliteration in italics (stsji)36 and give a definition of the realia. Although concise, this definition
highlights more than one feature of щи: it establishes the type of food (soup), further specifies what
it is made of (cabbage) and, finally, emphasizes the origin of this dish (Russian).
The English TT, however, confines itself to a simple paraphrase in this case:
EN TT: It was here at the Paris clinic where they placed my baby on my belly, pressed colostrum from my
breast, gave him a chance to lick it, and then took him away, But I’m hungry. They brought bouillon, and I was
craving cabbage soup.
Trying to evaluate the effects of these two different translation procedures, we may need to consider
the wider context of this excerpt. A famous Russian singer keeps a diary where she, among other
things, describes her emigre life in Paris in the early 20th century characterized by occasional bouts
of homesickness. By including the exotic name of the soup in the TT, as well as drawing our
attention to its Russian origin, the Norwegian translator manages to retain the opposition between
the French bouillon served at the hospital and the desired traditional Russian soup. The craving
becomes a form of nostalgia. In the English translation, however, this contrast is not as obvious: it
may seem that the character is simply craving for a different kind of soup, and any further
associations are rather unlikely to be evoked by this translation solution.
That being said, the Norwegian example above demonstrates to a certain extent that smoothly
incorporating RIDS in the text is far from easy. The most difficult case would be a dialog, where
both participants have the same cultural background. In such a case, using Retention combined
with a detailed specification may sound odd and redundant. So far, I have not come across an
36 Perhaps sjtsji, rather than stsji, would be a more standard transliteration, but the translator chose an alternative spelling, possibly for easier readability.
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example where RIDS has been incorporated in a dialog. However, using RIDS in a monolog
presents some difficulties, too. If we look closer at the Norwegian translation above, a number of
questions may arise:
• A diary normally does not presuppose a reader other than the author of that diary. Why would
the Russian character mention щи and feel the need to explain what this is to herself?
• If the author of a diary nevertheless has some audience in mind (her relatives or fans, for
instance), the readers of the original diary will normally share the background knowledge with
the author. Why, then, would the Russian character feel obliged to define щи to her Russian
readers?
Another example may illustrate how English and Norwegian translators use the same translation
procedure, but in slightly different manners:
RU ST: Стояла кутья, хлеб, сыр, блюдо среднеазиатской зелени да крутые яйца. (LUM)
NO TT: De hadde “kutja” — den spesielle gravølsgrøten, brød, ost, et fat med sentralasiatiske grønnsaker og
hardkokte egg.
EN TT: There was traditional kutiya with rice, raisins and honey, there was bread, cheese, a bowl of Central
Asian greens, and hard-boiled eggs.
Both translators describing the dinner at the memorial service choose to retain the original realia
— кутья — and complement it with a few specifying words. The Norwegian translation focuses
on the fact that it is a special kind of porridge often served at funerals.37 The English translator, on
the other hand, points out that the dish is traditional (it is not specified, though, if it is served on
special occasions) and lists the key ingredients. As we can see, decisions as to which features of
the realia are more relevant in a specific context and thus require explicitation are ultimately the
translator’s choice. Regardless of what these explicated features are, though, the result is inevitably
more wordy than the original. The Russian utterance above starts with a very laconic list
characterized by a specific enumeration prosody: кутья, хлеб, сыр. The translation involving
RIDS cannot help but lose both the laconism and the original prosody.
Out of the four translation shifts discussed so far, Retention proper is considered the most
foreignizing one, as it does not disclose the meaning of realia at the word level. The remaining
shifts involving Retention (RES, RISS and RIDS) are regarded as increasingly more domesticating
37 Interestingly, in addition to that, an endnote with a more elaborate definition is provided for kutja: “gravølsgrøt av kokt ris eller gryn med honning og rosiner” (funeral porridge of cooked rice or grain with honey and raisins).
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in line with the degree of semantic explicitation they provide without interrupting the reading flow.
RIDS, offering the highest degree of explicitation within the main text, is viewed as the most
domesticating type of Retention in my model.
5.3.2.5 Loan Translation Loan Translation (LT), or calquing, involves literal translation of complex words and phrases by
their constituent elements. In a sense, it is a form of borrowing: what is borrowed is not the phonetic
form of the lexical item as in Retention, but rather its structure. When discussing syntactic shifts,
Chesterman (1997: 94), following Vinay and Darbelnet (1958), uses the terms “calque” and “literal
translation” to refer to literal translation of words/phrases and whole sentences, respectively.
Pedersen (2011: 83), however, prefers the notion “direct translation” to cover “both their levels of
literalness”. In my work, I use the terms calque and Loan Translation interchangeably: calque can
be seen as a specific result of Loan Translation.
A textbook example of a calque is the English word skyscraper rendered morpheme-by-
morpheme in Russian as небоскрёб, in Norwegian as skyskraper, in French as gratte-ciel, etc. An
example of a phrasal calque could be the Russian realia Красная армия rendered word-by-word
as Den røde armé (Den røde hær) in Norwegian or The Red Army in English. There are, however,
numerous cases when a translation shift qualifies as Loan Translation with certain reservations. We
will first look at the more prototypical examples of calque in my data:
RU ST: (...) затем прямо под окном медленно поплыла высокая платформа, ярко освещенная,
заснеженная, с фигурами людей в зимних пальто и полушубках, с чемоданами в руках (…). (LT)
NO TT: (...) deretter fløt den høye plattformen inn rett under vinduet, sterkt opplyst, snødekt, med skikkelser
av mennesker i vinterfrakker og halvpelser og med kofferter i hendene (...).
Here the structural elements of the realia полушубок are translated into Norwegian individually —
and a new compound word is formed as a result.
Fixed phrases rendered by LT could be illustrated by the following example:
RU ST: Персиков оставшиеся 20 экземпляров квакш попробовал перевести на питание тараканами, но
и тараканы куда-то провалились, показав свое злостное отношение к военному коммунизму. (MB)
NO TT: De 20 eksemplarene frosker som Persikov satt igjen med, prøvde han så å sette over på kakerlakkdiett,
men selv kakerlakkene forduftet et eller annet steds hen og fikk slik vist sin fiendtlige holdning til
krigskommunismen.
EN TT: (...) and Persikov tried to shift the twenty surviving specimens of tree-frogs onto a diet of cockroaches,
but then the cockroaches disappeared too, thereby demonstrating their hostile attitude to war communism.
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Военный коммунизм — the economic system implemented during the Russian Civil War — is
translated by LT in both TTs: in the Norwegian text, a compound word replaces the original phrase,
whereas in English, a phrase consisting of a noun and a premodifier is used.
Other examples of Loan Translation (all from translations of Shishkin’s Venerin volos) are
День красной армии → Den røde hærs dag and Red Army Day, день танкиста → Tanksførernes
dag and Tankist Day, новогодние ёлки → New Year’s trees, Народный дом → Folkets hus and
People’s House.
In their classification of translation procedures, Vlakhov and Florin (1986/2012: 91) speak
of a variation of calque — partial calque — which is a result of partial Loan Translation. This
procedure involves creating a lexical item which consists of both SL and TL elements. In other
words, one element of the original lexical item (a morpheme or a word) is rendered by Retention
while another element is translated. The example Vlakhov and Florin (ibid) use is the German
Drittes Reich rendered as Третий рейх in Russian and the Russian realia декабрист transferred
as decembrist in English — the structure of the word with suffix -ist is retained (as the suffix is
used in both languages), while the root is translated. It is interesting to compare how this word is
rendered in Norwegian and English TTs:
RU ST: (...) было ли известно Достоевскому, что декабристы не очень доверяли Пушкину, считая его
человеком неустойчивым и болтливым? (LT)
NO TT: (...) kjente Dostojevskij til at dekabristene ikke hadde særlig tiltro til Pusjkin, men så på ham som en
vinglete og altfor pratsom mann?
EN TT: (...) did Dostoyevsky realize that the Decembrists did not really trust Pushkin very much, considering
him both unstable and indiscreet?
While in the Norwegian TT the original lexical item is transliterated, in the English TT it is calqued.
However, the RuN Corpus provides a curious example of a different Norwegian rendering of this
word: in Erik Egeberg’s translation of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, we come across декабрист →
desembermann, where the root is translated and the suffix -ист (here designating a participant of
a political uprising) is replaced by the word mann (man). Although the calqued version deviates
somewhat from the original structure — morphemes are rendered by words to form a compound
— I will regard such cases as calques.
Other examples of partial calque in my data are пожарские котлеты → pozjarskij-
koteletter and pozharsky cutlets, Лазарева суббота → Lasaruslørdag and Lazarus Saturday,
балалаечник → balalaika-musikant and balalaika player, толстовец → tolstojaner and
Tolstoyan, белужья икра → kaviar fra Beluga (the last capitalized word might suggest a place
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name — Beluga — although it is a species of fish)38. As evident from these examples, the element
that is retained in partial calques is often a proper noun: Пожарский, Лазарь, Толстой.
As compared to loanwords, calques allow the reader to decipher the meaning of an unfamiliar
realia more easily: e.g. halvpels, New Year’s tree, Tankist Day are fairly accessible with little
reliance on the context. There are, however, many examples where this is not the case: for instance,
both Decembrist and Tolstoyan are not easily understandable without some background knowledge:
RU ST: В свободное время он сидит в своем углу с книжкой в руках — про него говорят, что он
толстовец, не ест мясного и что, прочитав “Холстомера”, завещал свой скелет в анатомический кабинет
гимназии. (MS)
NO TT: Når han ikke er beskjeftiget, sitter han i kroken sin med en bok mellom hendene. Folk sier at han er
tolstojaner og ikke spiser kjøtt, og at da han hadde lest Tolstojs “Historien om en hest”, så testamenterte han
skjelettet sitt til anatomirommet på gymnasiet.
EN TT: In his free time he sits in his corner holding a book. People say he’s a Tolstoyan and doesn’t eat meat
and that after he read “Strider” he bequeathed his skeleton to the school’s anatomical collection.
The context does not reveal much about the Tolstoyan movement as a religious and philosophical
practice, and even the link between vegetarianism and the movement is not quite as obvious in the
text. Having read this excerpt, the reader might as well conclude that a Tolstoyan merely is an
admirer of Tolstoy.
Another example of a calque whose meaning might be obscure to the reader: RU ST: (...) я читал с бьющимся сердцем, надеясь найти хоть какой-нибудь просвет в этих рассуждениях,
которые можно было услышать от любого черносотенца (…). (LT)
NO TT: (...) jeg leste med bankende hjerte idet jeg håpet på i det minste en lysning i disse overlegningene, som
man ellers kunne høre hos ethvert medlem av de Svarte Hundre (…).
EN TT: (...) and I read all this with a pounding heart, hoping to discover in these arguments, which you might
have expected to hear from some member of the Black Hundreds (…).
The excerpt above reveals a negative attitude of the first-person protagonist to the ideology of the
Black Hundreds and the broader context suggests anti-Semitic ideas, but it is nevertheless far from
clear what kind of organization this was.
A special case of loan which I will also regard as calquing is a phenomenon sometimes
referred to as “semantic loan”, or “semantic calque”. Haugen (1950: 214) describes “semantic loan”
in the following way: “Here no formal structural element whatever has been imported, only a
meaning”. Put another way: a TL lexeme sharing the primary meaning with the polysemous SL
38 Moreover, if it had been interpreted as a species of fish by the translator, the preposition av instead of fra would have been used — “kaviar av beluga”.
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lexeme is attributed a new (often figurative) meaning. One example of semantic calque is the
Russian words белые and красные which had acquired politically charged meanings during the
Russian Civil War and later transferred these additional meanings to other languages (the Reds and
the Whites; røde og hvite). Comparing various kinds of loans (loanwords and loan expressions,
calques and semantic calques), Haugen makes an important point: “To call this a ‘semantic loan’
overlooks the fact that all the loans described above are semantic; it is merely that in this case the
new meaning is the only visible evidence of the borrowing” (Haugen 1950: 214). Indeed, whether
the meaning of a new loanword or calque is accessible to all the TL speakers or not, the semantic
transfer is always intended by those who have imported a new lexical item. This semantic transfer
may be accompanied by different types of formal transfer (phonetic, morphemic, syntactic) or may
take place without any formal transfer as in the case of semantic loan.
Both ordinary and semantic calques allow the translator, if not always to convey the full
meaning of the realia, then at least to preserve a certain degree of its exoticism since the resulting
lexical item often stands out among commonly used TL lexemes.
5.3.2.6 Loan Translation with Extratextual Specification As pointed out above, although a calque might explicate to some extent the meaning of the original
realia, it is not uncommon that its meaning and connotations remain obscure to the TT reader.
Therefore, a translator may choose to complement this solution with additional information —
within the main text or in the paratext.
Loan Translation with Extratextual Specification (LTES) involves using a calque in the main
text and some sort of explanation in the paratext. In the same way that Retention with Extratextual
Specification is considered more foreignizing than Retention with Intratextual Specification in my
model, Loan Translation with Extratextual Specification will be regarded as slightly more
foreignizing than Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification because consulting extratextual
commentary, if it takes place at all, interrupts the reading flow. Consider the following example:
RU ST: Смешно рассказывала, как сбежала от своих родителей-староверов. (MS)
NO TT: Hun fortalte så morsomt om den gangen hum rømte fra foreldrene sine, som var gammeltroende.
Endnote: gammeltroende — kristne religionssamfunn som siden 1600-tallet, eller Nikons reformer, har brutt
med Den russisk-ortodokse kirke (a Christian religious community, which in the 17th century, or Nikon's
reforms, broke with the Russian Orthodox Church).
EN TT: She regaled me with her story of running away from her Old Believer parents.
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As we can see, in the English TT regular Loan Translation is used. The capitalized phrase Old
Believer is a rather informative phrase by itself and suggests the name of some religious community;
however, the reader would require additional cultural knowledge in order to truly understand the
utterance. In the Norwegian TT, on the other hand, additional historical information is provided in
the endnotes, although no obvious reference to the endnote is given. It is interesting to note that in
the Norwegian translation of Ulitskaia’s Medeia i ee deti the same realia is treated differently by
the same translator. Here, старовер is also rendered as gammeltroende, but no further explanation
is given. In general, this translation procedure is extremely rare in my Norwegian dataset, while in
the English translations it is not encountered at all.
Sometimes, even when an extratextual specification is provided, it is so brief that it is
questionable how much it contributes to the understanding of a realia. One example may illustrate
this:
RU ST: И еще та девушка стеснялась своей груди. У нее была заплатка из лягушачьей шкурки. Будто
человеческой кожи не хватило и пришлепали что под руку попалось. Царевна-лягушка. (MS)
NO TT: Den piken hadde forresten vært så sjenert over brystet sitt. Hun hadde en flekk med froskehud der.
Som om det ikke var blitt nok menneskehud til henne, og de hadde klasket på noe de hadde for hånden.
Froskeprinsessen.
Endnote: Froskeprinsessen — russisk folkeeventyr (Russian fairy tale).
In Shishkin’s novel, one of the characters becomes involved with a girl and refers to her several
times throughout the story as царевна-лягушка. In the utterance above, this nickname is
encountered for the first time. The endnote explains that the reference is from a Russian fairy tale
while the context suggests a link between the “frog skin patch” and the nickname, but perhaps the
readers would benefit from knowing a little more about this mythical princess who is a frog by day
and turns into a human being by night by shedding her frog skin. The translator’s choice not to give
a more detailed explanation is probably motivated by the assumption that most readers are familiar
with the similar story about the Frog Prince known across many countries.
5.3.2.7 Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification
Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification (LTIS) is an attempt to make the meaning of a
calque more explicit and incorporate this explicitation in the main text of the translation. Let us
consider some examples describing Russian holidays:
RU ST: Первый заезд обычно бывал кратким, несколько праздничных майских дней, кое-кто дотягивал
до девятого. (LUM)
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NO TT: Det første innrykket var vanligvis kortvarig, noen fridager i mai, en og annen av gjestene drøyde gjerne
til over Seiersdagen den 9.mai.
EN TT: The first group visit was usually brief: a few days around the First of May holiday, with one or two
people staying on until the ninth.
In its primary sense, the phrase 9 мая is equal to both den 9.mai and the 9th of May — it is a
particular day of the year. The additional culture-bound sense of the Russian 9 мая — Victory Day,
widely celebrated in Russia — needs to be transferred to the TT for a semantic calque to emerge.
Whether this takes place or not in the English example above is difficult to say. The Russian 9 мая
is literally translated into English, but before that there is a mention of May holidays “around the
First of May”, so that the readers are given a hint that the 9th of May might also be a holiday. In the
Norwegian version, on the other hand, a calque is coupled with an intratextual specification in order
to convey the relevant connotations of the 9th of May — Seiersdagen (Victory Day). I will refer to
this as LTIS in my study. A similar example is found in the same novel:
RU ST: Осенью, к ноябрьским праздникам, Медея вышла на пенсию. (LUM)
NO TT: Denne høsten, da det nærmet seg revolusjonsmarkeringen i november, gikk Medea av med pensjon.
EN TT: Medea retired from her job in the autumn, on the Revolution Day holiday in November.
In both cases, the translator probably found the regular LT insufficient — it is not considered part
of the general knowledge of English- or Norwegian-speaking readers what was celebrated in the
Soviet Union in November. Thus, in both TTs, a cultural reference to the Great October Revolution
is given as a specification to the calque.
At the end of my discussion of the foreignizing translation procedures, I would like to
emphasize once again, that the distinction between foreignizing and domesticating solutions is
rather arbitrary and could be easily challenged. In essence, all the procedures described so far as
well as those described below have various degrees of both domestication and foreignization. What
distinguishes the translation procedures I am about to discuss from those covered so far, is that they
result in lexical items which do not retain any distinct formal resemblance to the original ones —
both their phonetic form and structure deviate significantly from the original.
5.3.2.8 Explicitation by an Extended Paraphrase When a translator chooses not to retain the original form of a realia, explicitation becomes a highly
frequent solution. In what follows, I will discuss three types of explicitation which I identify
depending on the level of semantic explicitation involved. These are Explicitation by an Extended
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Paraphrase, Explicitation by a Short Paraphrase and Explicitation by a Hypernym or a Neutral
Synonym.
Explicitation by an Extended Paraphrase (EEP) typically involves using a superordinate term
coupled with a specification describing more than one semantic feature of the TL realia. This
translation procedure always entails a rather wordy result which might be difficult to incorporate
in a dialog. In that respect it is very similar to RIDS discussed above, but the crucial difference is
that in EEP the form of the TL realia is not retained. The decision to avoid foreign elements in
translation may be motivated by a number of considerations: the translator does not want to confuse
the reader by including a foreign-sounding lexeme as this might impede the reading; the translator
finds rendering the semantics of a realia far more important than conveying its local/historical color;
the translator does not want to draw too much attention to an insignificant realia; etc.
When resorting to EEP, different translators explicate different semantic features of the TL
realia. An example from Tsypkin’s novel Leto v Badene may illustrate this observation:
RU TT: (...) одежда на нем тоже какая-то старомодная, что-то вроде косоворотки, поверх которой надет
пиджак, — все поношенное, но чистое и аккуратное (…). (LT)
NO TT: (...) klærne hans er også noe gammeldagse, en skjorte med rett krage med sideknepning, over denne
har han en dressjakke — alt slitt, men rent og pertentlig (...).
EN TT: (...) and his clothes are also out-of-date, a waistcoat over what looks like a traditional Russian shirt
— everything well-worn, but clean and neat (…).
As we can see, both translators use the same hypernym (shirt) and supplement it with further
explicitation, though in rather different ways. The Norwegian translator brings into focus the formal
features of the piece of clothing described (straight collar, side placket), possibly under influence
from the bilingual dictionary definition: косоворотка — herreskjorte med oppstående krage som
kneppes på siden (men’s shirt with a raised collar buttoned on the side) (Berkov 2011: 412). The
English translator, on the other hand, chooses to emphasize the historical and national components
of the realia meaning, presumably considering the actual appearance of косоворотка irrelevant in
the given context.
Other examples of EEP found in my data where formal features of realia’ referents are made
explicit include: in English TTs — расстегай → small fish pie, сбитень → sweet spiced drink,
голубцы → stuffed cabbage rolls; in Norwegian TTs — винегрет → rødbetsalat og poteter (beet
salad and potatoes), сакля → liten fjellbolig med flatt tak (small mountain house with a flat roof),
терема → små tårnaktige paviljonger (small towering pavilions).
Depending on the nature of the realia and its role in the context, paraphrasing may focus on
the function rather than on the form of the referent:
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RU ST: А Сонечка вытащила откуда-то большую коричневую сумку, достала из нее скатерть-
самобранку с салфетками, холодными котлетками и ледяной окрошкой из термоса. (LUS)
EN TT: Sonechka produced a large brown holdall from somewhere, and drew out of it a magic tablecloth
which spread itself with napkins, rissoles, and ice-cold summer soup in a vacuum flask.
The English translation makes the functional aspects of the object explicit: it has certain magic
powers — among others, it can spread itself.
Another example comes from a Norwegian translation:
RU ST: А важно, что я сижу в красной комнате в воскресенье, смотрю телевизор, тут Серый приходит
(…). (MS)
NO TT: Det som er viktig, er at jeg sitter i propagandarommet eller andaktsrommet eller hva du vil kalle
det, på en søndag og ser på tv, og så kommer Sergej inn (...).
Красная комната which is also referred to as красный уголок in the novel is part of the military
barracks. In the Soviet Union, красный уголок was a room or a place in the room used for
propaganda or political education, as opposed to красный угол which is a decorated place in the
house, often literally a corner, where orthodox icons are displayed and where both the residents of
the house and their guests are supposed to pray. It is symbolic and perhaps not at all accidental that
these two different phenomena have very similar names. The author of Venerin volos exploits this
similarity: when the room is referred to as красный уголок further in the text, the reference is rather
ambiguous and evokes both political and religious associations:
RU ST: А замполит, надев рясу, им в красном уголке все про то же (…). (MS)
In the previously quoted example, the Norwegian translator, in an attempt to reflect the ambiguity
of красная комната — which could be either a propaganda room (propagandarom) or a prayer
room (andaktsrom) or a peculiar mix of the two — chooses to mention both possible functions of
this room. In addition to that, she makes the uncertainty explicit — eller hva du vil kalle det (or
whatever you call it).
As evident from the above examples, EEP allows the translator to explicate several semantic
features of the realia-object and thus give the reader some idea of what the object looks like, what
it is used for or how the phenomenon works. However, the potential downside of this procedure is
that it results in a wordy utterance which quite often lacks any indication of the cultural uniqueness
of the object/phenomenon. After all, sweet spiced drink remains an “anonymous” sweet spiced
drink and not a specific Russian honey drink with a long history — сбитень.
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5.3.2.9 Explicitation by a Short Paraphrase Explicitation by a Short Paraphrase (ESP) normally involves using a superordinate term coupled
with a single-word specification describing only one semantic feature of the TL realia. At first
glance, this translation procedure does not appear significantly different from the previous one, and
one could argue that both procedures might just as well be classified as one and the same category.
My choice to put ESP into a separate category is motivated by the assumption that, in contrast to a
more elaborate paraphrase, it is far easier to integrate a hypernym with a single-word specification
into a TT without disturbing the reader’s attention or making the phrase too cumbersome. This
perhaps explains the high frequency of the ESP procedure.
The example below may illustrate the difference between EEP and ESP:
RU ST: Публика по большей части была самая простая. Оно и понятно — зрителей почище на дармовые
пряники и сбитень на заманишь (…). (MS)
NO TT: Folket var for det aller meste genuint folkelig. Forståelig nok, for de mer bemidlede lot seg ikke lokke
med gratis kaker og sterke drikker (…).
EN TT: For the most part the crowd consisted of simple people, which was only natural — free honey cakes
and sweet spiced drinks were hardly likely to attract a more respectable public (…).
To render сбитень, the English translator uses an extended paraphrase (EEP) with two features of
the drink explicated (sweet and spiced), while the Norwegian translator confined herself to a shorter
paraphrase suggesting that the drink is alcoholic (strong). For пряники, the English TT provides
the ESP solution (honey cakes) whereas the Norwegian TT once again offers a more general short
rendering consisting of a single hypernym — kaker (the latter translation procedure is discussed in
more detail in the next section). In both treatments of realia, the difference between the English
and Norwegian renderings is not a radical one (EEP vs. ESP and ESP vs. hypernym). However,
shorter paraphrases, especially when encountered in one sentence like in the given example, tend
to result in a translation which is less specific but more concise and easier to read.
As mentioned in the discussion of other translation procedures, Norwegian and English differ
in how frequently they use compounds instead of phrases. In Norwegian, compounding is a highly
productive word formation process. As a result, a great number of similar translation solutions in
Norwegian and English TTs will take slightly different forms:
RU ST: Железнодорожный сторож на переезде — зипун, стоптанные валенки, барашковая шапка, два
свернутых флага, красный и зеленый, под мышкой, в руках потухший фонарь. (MS)
NO TT: Det står en jernbanevakt på togovergangen — i vadmelskofte, stoppede filtstøvler og saueskinnslue,
med to sammenrullede flagg under armen, et rødt og et grønt, i hendene holder han en slukket lykt.
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EN TT: A railroad guard at the crossing: homespun coat, felt boots down at the heels, lambskin hat, two furled
flags, red and green, under his arm, holding a doused lamp.
Here we can see a Norwegian translation involving two compounds (vadmelskofte and filtstøvler)
and a corresponding English translation which makes use of two phrases (homespun coat and felt
boots). All the four translation solutions are classified as ESP according to my model. It is worth
noting, however, that in quite a few cases compounds present a considerable challenge for
classification as it is not always easy to say whether a compound is so frequent and thus lexicalized
that it should be regarded as a single word or whether it is still on the border between word level
and phrase level. Jackson points out that “there appears to be a gradation between compounds
(regarded as single lexemes) and syntactic constructions (of several lexemes) which look like
compounds (...)” (Jackson 1996: 14). Regardless of where we draw the line, it is bound to be
somewhat arbitrary. The criterion for distinguishing between the two types of compounds could be
their frequency in a national corpus but establishing it would require a lot of additional research.
Therefore, in ambiguous cases I will rely on Norwegian dictionaries for identifying lexicalized
compounds. For instance, småkake, dressjakke or halskjede are often included in dictionaries and
should probably be regarded as lexicalized compounds (hence, single hypernyms when
encountered in TTs), while påskekake, lefsekake, lerretsjakke and vattjakke may be viewed as less
frequent and thus not quite lexicalized compounds.
Other examples of ESP found in my data include: for Norwegian — кулебяка → fiskepirog
(fish pie), кулич → høy kake (tall cake), окрошка → sommersuppe (summer soup), ватник →
vattert jakke, vattjakke (quilted jacket), ладанка → liten pose (little bag), арык → vanningskanal
(irrigation canal), etc.; for English — винегрет → pickled salad, окрошка → summer soup,
ватник → quilted jacket, quilted vest, треух → fur hat, юфть → Russian leather, арык →
irrigation ditch, etc. Common for all ESP renderings is that they describe realia-items in a concise
and unobtrusive way explicating the feature that the translator finds most characteristic of the
item/phenomenon in question or most relevant in a given context. However, the reader is not given
any indication that the TT lexeme refers to a unique culture-bound item. In other words, all the
foreign connotations are avoided, and the local/historical “flavor” of the original lexeme is not
conveyed.
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5.3.2.10 Explicitation by a Hypernym Explicitation by a Hypernym (EH) involves using a single-word superordinate term to render a
realia. When the translator decides that specific features of a culture-bound object/phenomenon are
not relevant in a particular context, while at the same time Retention does not seem pertinent, he/she
might choose to use a more general well-known lexeme that puts the realia in question into a class
of objects familiar to the reader: e.g. валенки → boots, чуйка → frakk (coat).
It is important to bear in mind that when we speak of a superordinate term in a TT as a
rendition of a ST lexeme, it is to a certain extent an approximation. Strictly speaking, each
particular lexical item develops sense relations (synonymic, hypernymic) with other lexical items
within the semantic system of a specific language. Further, as Jackson (1996: 89) reminds us, there
is no universal metalanguage suitable for describing the meanings of lexemes in any language.
What this implies is that, when translation scholars try to examine which aspects of meaning are
common and which are different in a ST–TT pair of semantically related lexemes (as it is
sometimes done through componential analysis), they are doing this with linguistic means and not
with some objective neutral metalanguage of semantics. Keeping these reservations in mind, we
may nevertheless attempt to compare the meanings of a ST lexeme and its counterpart in the TT.
Using the example above, we could say that boots refers to a type of footwear which covers the
foot and ankle, sometimes also the lower leg, and can be made of different materials, whereas
валенки refers to a more specific type of Russian traditional winter footwear made of wool felt.
Let us consider some examples in context:
RU ST: (…) но я еще и запачкал чужой кровью новый прогулочный камзол. (BA)
NO TT: (…) i tillegg sølte jeg til mine nye spaserklær med andres blod.
It is not uncommon that using a hypernym is motivated by the fact that some sort of elaboration
relevant to a particular context is already given in the ST. Here, the ST specifies that камзол
(traditional Russian garment) was of a specific type — прогулочный (designed for promenades).
Since this function is brought into focus by the author of the ST, the translator probably finds it
redundant to give more detail on the type of garment the character is wearing, hence uses a very
general description — klær (clothes) as part of a more specific compound — spaserklær
(promenade clothes).
Another example where both English and Norwegian translators use the same translation
procedure for presumably the same reasons:
RU ST: Там, ночью, я, наверно, бредил и все вспоминал, как на Новый год мы с моим Ромкой наряжаем
елку — я сажаю его на шею, и он надевает игрушки на верхние ветки. (MS)
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NO TT: Om natten der, det var vel i feberørske, antar jeg, lå jeg hele tiden og tenkte på da jeg og min kjære lille
Romka pyntet treet til nyttår — jeg satte ham opp på nakken min og så hengte han leker på de øverste greinene.
EN TT: There, that night, I must have been raving, and I kept remembering my Romka and me decorating the
tree for New Year’s. I would put him on my shoulders and he would hang the ornaments from the top branches.
While in other scenes in the TTs we encounter both New Year’s tree and the culturally adopted
juletre (Christmas tree) as translation solutions, in the above example the translators do not go
beyond a single superordinate term, most likely because the context provides us with the necessary
information — the characters decorate a tree for New Year’s. This kind of specification may of
course be given anywhere in the text outside of the sentence in question.
Another possible reason for using EH as a translation solution is a previous occurrence of the
same realia in the text where it was given a more detailed rendering. An example from a Norwegian
translation might illustrate this point. When the word терема occurs in Akunin’s novel for the first
time, it is rendered with an extended paraphrase — små tårnaktige paviljonger (small tower-like
pavilions). However, all three subsequent references to терем receive a more concise treatment in
translation, as in the following example:
RU ST: Подтянувшись, в терем влез и Эраст Петрович. (BA)
NO TT: Erast Petrovitsj løftet seg med armene og klatret inn i paviljongen.
In the same way, in Medeia i ee deti the realia арык is first translated as vanningskanal in
Norwegian and irrigation aryk or irrigation ditch in English and subsequently referred to as simply
kanal and ditch.
Other examples of EH include: in the Norwegian TTs — расстегай → pai (pie),
неваляшка → dukke (doll), козёл → domino, кафтан, тужурка → jakke (jacket), тальма,
черкеска → kappe (gown, cape); in the English TTs — ладанка → bag, кафтан → coat,
ушанка → hat, кулич → cake, балык → sturgeon, козёл → dominoes.
Like the previously discussed translation procedure (ESP), Explicitation by Hypernym
renders the original realia in a brief and inconspicuous way not drawing attention to any exotic
aspects of the referent. It is, however, slightly more domesticating than ESP, as EH only allows for
a very generic rendering, which places the realia’s referent in a recognizable class of objects
without any further specification.
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5.3.2.11 *Stylistic Adaptation One translation procedure stands out for dealing with expressive meaning rather than referential
meaning. I have chosen to term it Stylistic Adaptation (SA), and it involves explicitation by a
neutral synonym. Aixela (1996: 63) refers to it as “limited universalization” as opposed to
Explicitation by Hypernym which he identifies as “absolute universalization”. The main difference
between these two procedures is that in case of EH the translator finds a lexical item with a more
generic meaning to replace the realia, whereas in the case of SA, the translator resorts to a near
equivalent with a more neutral, less expressive meaning. Even though speaking of “synonyms”
across different languages is often as controversial as speaking of “hypernyms”, the relationship
between the original word and its SA translation might be regarded as more equal in terms of
describing the reference than the relationship found in a EH translation. Often, the lexical item used
in the SA translation belongs to the source culture. It is best illustrated with renderings of the
archaic, colloquial and slang terms for money:
RU ST: Я дал вымогателю “канарейку” (...). (BA)
NO TT: Jeg ga pengeutpresseren en rubelseddel (…).
EN TT: I gave the extortioner a ‘canary’ (...).
Канарейка here refers to a one-ruble banknote which used to be of yellow color. As the wider
context suggests bargaining and it is rather clear that the realia refers to money, in the English TT
it is rendered literally — with a semantic calque canary. However, the Norwegian translator,
possibly to avoid confusing the readers, opts for a more neutral explicitation. Note that the neutral
translation makes use of the realia rooted in the source culture — rubel. It may be said that the
English translator makes an attempt to preserve the expressive nature of the slang word but fails to
convey its referential meaning to his readers. The Norwegian translator, on the other hand, makes
the referential meaning explicit at the expense of the word’s expressiveness which could have
contributed to creating a certain impression about the character.
The difference between the translation procedures of SA and EH may be seen in the following
example:
RU ST: Подозвал Петю, племянника Кострова, и тут же достал у него из одного уха гривенник, а из
другого конфету. (MS)
NO TT: Han ropte til seg Petja, Kostrovs nevø, og øyeblikket efter hadde han tatt en tikopekmynt ut av det
ene øret hans og en konfekt ut av det andre.
EN TT: He called Petya over, Kostrov’s nephew, and pulled a coin out from behind one ear and candy from
the other.
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Гривенник — the colloquial (and virtually obsolete) word denoting a ten-copeck coin — is
rendered with a synonymous neutral compound in Norwegian (tikopekmynt – ten-kopeck coin) and
with a hypernym in English (coin). The English solution is possibly motivated by the translator’s
conclusion that the actual denomination of the coin is irrelevant in the description of a magic trick.
Identifying SA as a separate translation procedure is disputable. Strictly speaking, various
stylistic adjustments accompany many translation solutions. For instance, a certain degree of
stylistic adaptation may be observed in rendering realia with expressive suffixes: водочка → vodka,
самоварчик → samovar. In my model, however, these cases are regarded as Retention proper.
Another group of lexis that is subject to stylistic transformation is archaic words. Every time an
obsolete lexeme is translated with modern lexis, we may record a stylistic change. What
distinguishes Stylistic Adaptation from other translation procedures that involve stylistic
adjustments may be summarized as follows:
1. the phonetic/graphic form of the TT lexical item is different from that of the ST realia, but it
is also rooted in the source culture (e.g. целковый → rouble);
2. the ST and TT lexemes differ only in their expressive meaning; the referential meaning
remains the same.
The only class of realia to which this type of translation procedure is frequently applied is
currency. However, occasionally one may encounter examples from other classes: e.g. русская
горькая → vodka, хохол → Ukrainian, ukrainer.
It is rather problematic to situate the SA procedure on the domestication/foreignization
continuum. It appears it should be placed in the explicitation section but come before Explicitation
by a Hypernym as the latter implies a much higher degree of generalization (cf. tikopekmynt vs.
coin). It is perhaps possible to place SA at the same point on the spectrum as Explicitation by a
Short Paraphrase although these two procedures are rather different: in ESP, part of the referential
meaning is left out while in SA part of the expressive meaning is lost.
5.3.2.12 Functional Substitution
In his discussion of the translation procedure of Substitution, Pedersen (2011: 89–96) distinguishes
between Cultural Substitution and Situational Substitution. The first type of Substitution is
identified when there is a link between the original lexical item and its TT rendering, and the second
type is observed when the ST lexeme is replaced by “something completely different that fits the
situation” (Pedersen 2011: 89). The latter subcategory is termed “contextual translation” in
Vlakhov and Florin (1986/2012) and will be regarded as a separate category in my model.
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According to Baker (2011a: 29), Cultural Substitution “involves replacing a culture-specific
item or expression with a target-language item which does not have the same propositional meaning
but is likely to have a similar impact on the target reader, for instance by evoking a similar context
in the target culture”. Pedersen further divides Cultural Substitution into two subcategories —
Substitution by a Target Culture Extralinguistic Cultural Reference and Substitution by a
Transcultural Extralinguistic Cultural Reference. In the first case, the TT rendering is clearly rooted
in the target culture. A good example of this type of translation would be:
RU ST: Кто ранен был спереди, тому честь великую воздавал и называл его витязем. (MS)
NO TT: De som var blitt såret forfra, gav han de største æresbevisninger og kalte dem ekte vikinger.
EN TT: Anyone wounded in the front had great honor bestowed upon him and the title of knight.
In both translations, the Russian realia витязь undergoes cultural adaptation and is replaced by
lexical items specific to the target cultures — viking and knight.
The second subcategory of Cultural Substitution involves replacing the original realia with a
lexical item which Pedersen refers to as “transcultural” (ibid) — that is, well-known across
different cultures and not belonging to the target culture:
RU ST: Правда, там под ним был не овраг в двадцать саженей, а д-двухверстная пропасть. (BA)
NO TT: Riktignok hang den ikke over en kløft på førti meter, men over en avgrunn på mer enn to kilometer.
EN TT: Of course, the drop below it was not twenty sazhens, it was a gulf of two versts.
Whereas the English translator makes use of Retention, possibly to preserve the archaic/exotic feel
of the text, the Norwegian translator chooses to modernize the utterance by converting сажень and
верста into meters and kilometers which are both the official measures in Norway and are
commonly used worldwide. In Pedersen’s terms, one might call it a substitution by a transcultural
lexical item.
It could be argued that the first subcategory is somewhat more domesticating than the second
one; however, in practice using target-culture items and transcultural items have more or less the
same purpose — to replace the unfamiliar realia with something familiar that has the same or
similar function in the target culture. That is why I have decided to not distinguish between these
two varieties of Cultural Substitution and refer to this procedure as Functional Substitution (FS) to
avoid the connotations of cultural specificity. The lexical items which are used as a result of FS
may be termed “functional analogue” as in Vlakhov and Florin (1986/2012).
FS is frequently used when the translator wishes to avoid long paraphrasing and instead seeks
a space-efficient solution but at the same time does not want to overly generalize (by using a
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hypernym) or to obscure the text (by using a loanword or a calque). By giving a reference to an
object/phenomenon which is functionally similar to the original one, the translator aims at quickly
evoking comparable associations in the target readership. A few more examples might illustrate
this procedure:
RU ST: Извозчики под снегом — как деды морозы. (MS)
NO TT: Drosjekuskene sitter nedsnedd som julenisser.
EN TT: The snow-blanketed coachmen are like Father Frosts.
As we can see, the English translator opts for a calque, while the Norwegian one uses a functional
analogue instead, aiming at conveying the connotations of the realia rather than its referential
meaning. When evaluating the potential effect of these two solutions on the readers, one may say
that English readers benefit from picturing some exotic folklore character though not quite knowing
what he looks like, whereas the Norwegian TT is apt to promptly evoke a familiar image in its
readers, thus making it easier to understand the motivation behind the simile. In other words, the
English rendering of the utterance is likely to require a greater effort of imagination from its readers.
As Pedersen (2011: 93) points out, in a great number of cases when FS is used, it is dictated
by a long-standing tradition. He refers to these well-established TT counterparts as “official
equivalents”. These may be found in bilingual dictionaries and are chosen consistently in many
TTs by different translators: e.g. уезд → NO herred/provins, EN district; верста → NO kilometer,
EN mile; пирог → EN pie.
Functional Substitution is the only translation procedure that may create what Nedergaard-
Larsen refers to as a “credibility problem” (1993: 231). While most functional analogues pass
largely unnoticed (пирожок → EN pie, NO kake; сушки → EN biscuits; чайная → NO kafe) and
may remain unnoticed even when the TT solution is clearly rooted in the target culture (e.g.
госпожа → NO herr, господин → NO fru, винт → EN whist), others may raise questions and
seem out of place in the novel’s setting. Below is one such controversial example from Akunin’s
historical novel:
RU ST: Стройность его прямой фигуры не могли скрыть ни мешковатая ряса, ни черный монашеский
клобук с ниспадающим на плечи крепом. (BA)
NO TT: Den velproporsjonerte, ranke skikkelsen hans lot seg ikke skjule hverken av den sekkeaktige
munkekappen eller den svarte munkehetten med kreppstoff hengende nedover skuldrene.
EN TT: Neither the baggy monk’s habit nor the black hood with the mantle falling to his shoulders could
conceal the grace of his erect figure.
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Клобук refers to a very specific headpiece of Orthodox monks in the form of a tall cylindrical hat
with a veil. In the TTs above, it is rendered as hette and hood, which may seem like an odd
translation solution to those who know what Orthodox monks look like. However, even if the
readers lack this knowledge, the monk’s hood combined with a mantle falling down his shoulders
creates a somewhat bizarre image. Another example of this type of solution is when old Russian
units of measures are rendered with distinctly target-culture measures: аршин → NO alen, пуд →
EN stone, hundredweight.
Often the distinction between the translation shifts of FS and EH is not straightforward. As a
rule, a hypernym has a more general sense compared to that of the original realia, whereas in
Functional Substitution the ST and TT items are in synonymic relations. In other words, if the ST
item is X and the TT item is Y, then we may say that, in the case of Explicitation by Hypernym,
X is a type of Y, while in the case of Functional Substitution X is similar to Y. However, as
repeatedly pointed out above, the hierarchical semantic relations are difficult to analyze across
languages, hence the classification problem. One may wonder, for instance, if папиросы are in
hypernymic or synonymic relations with cigarettes. Is клобук a type of hette/hood or is it
functionally similar to hette/hood? In the sense of “a covering for the head and neck with an
opening for the face”, it is indeed functionally similar to клобук and may be classified as a
functional substitute. However, in the sense of “an item of clerical clothing worn by Russian
Orthodox monks” клобук is far more specific than hette or hood and hence may be viewed as their
hyponym. Thus, in many ambiguous cases classifying the TT item as a case of EH or FS is to some
extent an approximation. In my model, however, the two procedures are located next to each other
on the scale, so the numerical difference between these is not at all big. This will hopefully allow
to avoid skewing the statistical calculations in any significant way.
To sum up, it may be said that with FS the translator aims at conveying the most important
functional aspects of the realia by referring to some object/phenomenon in the target culture with
similar functions. It is a concise and efficient solution; however, in some cases, when the chosen
TT item clashes with the novel’s setting it might result in a breach of illusion.
5.3.2.13 Contextual Substitution Following Vlakhov and Florin (1986/2012), I use the term Contextual Substitution (CS) where
Pedersen (2011) speaks of Situational Substitution, or “quasi-omission”. In my study, I regard a
translation solution as a case of CS when the translation of a lexical item is so loose that it becomes
difficult to establish the semantic link between the realia and its TT counterpart at the word level.
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In those cases, the TT solution works well in a given context but would be inapplicable in most
other contexts. An example might clarify what is meant by CS:
RU ST: – Ййя! – противно крякнул азиат, и шар сорвался вперед, просвистев в нескольких вершках
надо мной. (BA)
NO TT: “Ijja!” ropte asiaten vilt, og kulen fór plystrende av sted rett over meg.
EN TT: ‘Iiyai!’ the Oriental grunted in an appalling voice and the sphere went hurtling forward, whistling by
only a few vershoks above me.
Whereas the English translation makes use of a loanword preserving the Russian “flavor” of the
text (vershoks), the Norwegian TT omits the measure realia and instead indicates the short distance
by a loose paraphrase which appears sufficient to the translator in this particular context.
CS is a rather frequent translation procedure to render realia used in a figurative meaning:
RU ST: – То есть, проще говоря, я вас лупцую и всяко обижаю, а вам это как пряник. (BA)
EN TT: – To put it simply, I hurt and abuse you in every way I can, and you lap it up like honey.
Here, the word пряник occurs in a simile, hence the approximate rendering (honey) which conveys
something pleasant. Translating the realia descriptively or with a loanword in this case could have
resulted in a confusing utterance.
However, the metaphorical use of realia in the ST does not always entail Contextual
Substitution in the TT. This can be demonstrated by the following example:
RU ST: А еще нашел бумаги из того самого допесочного Египта, когда толмач был молодым учителем
орочей и тунгусов, получал копейки и бегал после школы еще по домашним урокам. (MS)
NO TT: Jeg fant også noen papirer nettopp fra Egypt før sandfloden, den gang tolkeren var en ung lærer og
underviste orotsjere og tungusere i Sibir, hevet luselønn man ikke kunne leve av, og derfor løp omkring i
husene etter skoletid og gav privattimer.
EN TT: I also found papers from that same antepulvian Egypt, when the interpreter was the young teacher of
Orochs and Tungus, earning kopeks, and after school dashed here and there giving private lessons.
While the Russian phrase получал копейки undergoes significant transformation in the Norwegian
TT (luselønn man ikke kunne leve av – poor salary one could not live off of) which may be classified
as CS, the English text retains the Russian realia offering a literal translation of the phrase. As the
realia kopeks is likely to be known by the target audience, the expectation is probably that the
readers will be able to comprehend the figurative sense of the phrase.
In general, CS is highly target-oriented and is used when the exact features of the realia in
question are perceived as irrelevant by the translator (often due to the metaphorical use of the
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lexeme), so he/she is seeking a solution that would fit the specific context but cannot be readily
adapted to other contexts.
5.3.2.14 Omission Omission involves not including the realia in question in the TT in any form. Pedersen suggests
two possible views on Omission: it could be regarded as the most target-oriented option available
or it can be conceptualized as an alternative to all other procedures “as it involves doing nothing,
as opposed to doing something” (Pedersen 2011: 96). In my model, it will be seen as the most
target-oriented (domesticating) solution. However, as I pointed out earlier, I make a distinction
between Non-Translation and Omission. If a whole sentence or paragraph is missing from the
translation (which frequently occurs in the English translation of Tsypkin’s novel, for instance) and,
as a result, no relation can be established on sentence level, then it becomes all the more impossible
to establish any relation on word level. In this case, I argue, what we are dealing with is not
Omission, but Non-Translation. Occurrences of Non-Translation are typically excluded from my
quantitative analysis unless there are good reasons to suspect that a sentence was eliminated from
the TT because of the difficulty rendering realia (one example is given in Section 6.3.6). If only
part of a sentence containing a realia is omitted (a phrase or a clause), it is viewed as Omission
because it might indicate that leaving out part of a sentence was due to a problematic culture-
specific item.
Pedersen (ibid) points out that the choice of Omission as a translation procedure may be
strongly motivated, but he admits it may also be used for no good reason. He quotes Leppihalme:
“a translator may choose omission responsibly, after rejecting all alternative strategies, or
irresponsibly, to save him/herself the trouble of looking up something s/he does not know” (1994:
93). In practice, it is of course very difficult to establish whether Omission is opted for responsibly
or not. Consider the example below:
RU ST: Потом потушили свет, в темноте зажгли жжёнку и устроили шествие в какой-то фантастической
военной форме а-ля рюс: торжественно пронесли на рапирах шашлыки. (MS)
NO TT: Til slutt slukket de lyset, og så flamberte de i mørket og anordnet en slags prosesjon med fantastiske
militæruniformer à la Russe: de kom skridende majestetisk inn med sjasjliker spiddet på floretter.
For one reason or another, the translator left out the reference to an alcoholic beverage although
the Norwegian verb flambere (to ignite) requires a direct object. Whether omission was done
inadvertently or on purpose is difficult to say. Whatever the reason, compared to the English TT
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where жжёнка is rendered as hot punch, the Norwegian TT is less comprehensible as a result of
the omission.
Another example of Omission:
RU ST: Я заметил, как напрягся Фандорин в ожидании атаманова ответа. (BA)
NO TT: Jeg merket at Fandorin ble anspent og ventet på svaret.
EN TT: I noticed that Fandorin tensed up as he waited for the bandit boss’s answer.
In the given context, the realia атаман is used not in its direct meaning (“a title of Cossack
leaders”), but in its figurative sense (“leader of the gang”). In the English translation, Contextual
Substitution is adopted, while in the Norwegian TT the word is simply omitted, possibly because
a reference to the gang leader seems superfluous to the translator: it is clear from the previous
dialog who the protagonist is talking to and whose response he is expecting.
Regardless of whether a specific realia is crucial in a given context or may be omitted without
much impact on the utterance/text, Omission is regarded as the most radical domesticating
procedure in my model because, unless Omission is due to an oversight, the translator makes no
attempt to convey the referential or connotational meaning of the realia.
5.4 Qualitative and quantitative approaches to realia In Research Methodologies in Translation Studies (2014), Saldanha and O’Brien point out that
a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches is often optimal if we want to suggest
explanations for the phenomena observed in the course of a quantitative study (Saldanha and
O’Brien 2014: 61). They argue that, while quantitative corpus-based research restricts biases
and allows generalizing results, a qualitative approach enables us to draw very fine distinctions
between compared phenomena on the micro-level and interpret our data in a broad context on
the macro-level (ibid). This is why I have chosen to combine the two approaches in the present
study.
After the coupled pairs (ST realia and their TT solutions) have been identified, I subject
my data to a qualitative research. Further, the obtained results are analyzed with the use of my
quantitative model. Finally, to interpret the quantitative results, I return to qualitative methods.
This process is described in more detail below.
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5.4.1 Qualitative methods in the present study According to the Typology of Shifts described in Section 5.3.2, I analyze each ST–TT coupled
pair trying to identify what formal and semantic changes have occurred in translation. I then
assign each solution to a specific category. For instance, the Russian–Norwegian coupled pair
бородинский → svart brød (black bread) is identified as Explicitation by Short Paraphrase
while the Russian–English coupled pair бородинский → Borodinsky loaf is identified as
Retention with Intratextual Short Specification. These data are later mapped onto my
quantitative model where each shift is located at a specific place on the
domestication/foreignization scale (see Section 5.4.2 below), and statistical calculations are
made to reveal the patterns emerging from the translators’ choices.
However, before any calculations are made, I perform a more detailed qualitative
analysis of the identified solutions. Grouping my data by thematic categories of realia described
in Section 3.9.3, I examine realia in specific contexts and compare their translation solutions in
English and Norwegian TTs. In the course of this analysis I attempt to do the following:
• I identify translation solutions which are remarkable in one way or another; a point of
interest could be a semantic difference between the ST realia and its TT translation, a
significant contrast between Norwegian and English translation solutions, implicit
cultural information that has not been conveyed, etc.;
• through close reading, I determine what role a given realia plays in a specific context
and whether leaving out some of its semantic features in translation may result in
different imagery; this sort of analysis often requires a consideration of the broader
context (i.e. broader than the cited utterance featuring realia);
• on some occasions, I consider stylistic modifications: e.g. whether a translation solution
is stylistically marked/unmarked compared to the original lexical item;
• while I try to avoid any value judgements, I often make assumptions about the
motivation of the translators: what may have prompted this or that specific solution and
why certain semantic features (and not others) have been made explicit; as my study is
product-oriented, this part of the analysis is inevitably speculative — it is based on my
conjecture rather than conclusive evidence;
• I occasionally speculate about the potential effect a specific translation solution may
have on the TT readership as compared to the realia’s effect on the ST readers:
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e.g. whether a retained (transliterated) realia will be recognized by the TT readers or
whether a calque will be transparent enough to convey the original meaning;
• In addition to that, at the end of each section devoted to a particular thematic category
of realia, I attempt to make generalizations about this category: I give a quantitative
summary of the translation solutions used to render this group of realia — i.e. compare
the medians and modes of the Norwegian and English solutions. In doing so, I seek to
find a link between the thematic category of realia and translation procedures adopted
to render them.
5.4.2 Quantitative methods in the present study As has been argued in Section 5.3, most (if not all) typologies of shifts are designed as a sort of
spectrum or continuum of source- to target-orientation. However, there have been very few
attempts to turn this implicit continuum into a quantitative model that enables a scholar to
measure the degree of domestication/foreignization. One such attempt is made in the article
“Measuring Foreignization in Literary Translation” (2012) by Piet van Poucke where he
proposes one way of transforming a typology of shifts into a useful tool for measuring the
degree of foreignization within a specific translated text. He cites Ligita Judickaite (2009) who
constructed a scale from 1 to 10 and applied it in her analysis of Lithuanian subtitles. Van
Poucke believes, however, that “the construction of a pure continuum of translation shifts is
rather utopian in essence” (van Poucke 2012: 143) because, in his opinion, many shifts are
incomparable: it is not easy to claim that a specific shift is this much more foreignizing than the
other. He goes on to suggest a possible solution: one can arrange various translation shifts into
four or five larger fields, or clusters. Those fields are defined as Strong Foreignization,
Moderate Foreignization, Moderate Domestication, Strong Domestication and Neutral
Translation (ibid: 144). Using his model, he compares different TL versions of one ST: after
analyzing transemes on a microstructural level, he proceeds to his formula to calculate the
degree of foreignization of three translations of the same Russian novel. Van Poucke’s formula
in its present version has some limitations: it is only suitable for comparing TTs of the same
original, i.e. translations from different periods and target cultures. The number of compared
lexical items must be the same.
Being well aware that it is difficult to meaningfully arrange translation shifts along a
neat continuum, I have decided to choose a scale model over a fields model for a number of
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reasons. First of all, I find the fine differences that can be observed between translation shifts
significant. For instance, Retention with no specification is, in my view, more foreignizing than
Retention with Intratextual Detailed Specification, while Functional Substitution is more
domesticating than Explicitation by Short Paraphrase. I admit, however, that some translation
solutions are difficult to classify in this way and may be interpreted as falling into more than
one category. For instance, the difference between Explicitation by Hypernym and Functional
Substitution is not always easy to determine, since the relations of hyponymy/hypernymy are
best identified within the same lexical system, whereas the compared SL and TL lexical items
come from different ones.
Another reason why I am skeptical of the field model is the potential problems with
interpretation of the calculations. In his case study, van Poucke received rather different results
for the three TTs he analyzed. However, if the results had been very similar, it would have been
difficult to interpret them. One would then have to question whether the similar results reflected
the same degree of domestication or whether they were caused by the approximate nature of
the model.
The last consideration concerns the scope of van Poucke’s research as opposed to my
study. He analyzes all translation shifts — lexico-semantic, syntactic and stylistic — in one
sample taken at random. When all these types of linguistic operations are included in the same
study, a taxonomy of shifts apt to describe this variety of phenomena may become very complex.
In such a case, it does makes sense to group translation shifts into clusters. As my study focuses
on examining translation solutions for one specific translation problem, the typology of shifts
is less elaborate and can be transformed into a scale.
Based on the typology of translation procedures for rendering realia described in
Section 5.3.2, I have developed a 13-point scale — from 0 to 12 — on which I placed all the
identified procedures. The one pole of this scale (0) corresponds to the most domesticating shift
— Omission, while the other pole (12) represents the most foreignizing shift — Retention
proper. The other shifts are located between them as follows:
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Figure 6. Translation procedures on the Domestication/Foreignization scale
R — Retention
RES — Retention with Extratextual Specification
RISS — Retention with Intratextual Short
Specification
RIDS — Retention with Intratextual Detailed
Specification
LT — Loan Translation
LTES — Loan Translation with Extratextual
Specification
LTIS — Loan Translation with Intratextual
Specification
EEP — Explicitation by Extended Paraphrase
ESP — Explicitation by Short Paraphrase
*SA — Stylistic Adaptation
EH — Explicitation by Hypernym
FS — Functional Substitution
CS — Contextual Substitution
O — Omission
The dashed line on the Domestication/Foreignization Scale indicates my division of shifts into
the domestication and foreignization groups. As I previously pointed out, this division is a crude
approximation, because situated on a continuum, all the translation shifts can be said to combine
both foreignization and domestication elements. SA with an asterisk implies that this translation
procedure stands out among other shifts, as it involves primarily stylistic modification. It is not
possible to include it into this scale on the same grounds as the shifts involving semantic
changes. Stylistic Adaptation, though, can be viewed as a sort of Explicitation, and its degree
of domestication is comparable to that of Explicitation by Hypernym or Short Paraphrase (e.g.
целковый → rouble, пятачок → five kopecks). I assign 4 points to all cases of Stylistic
Adaptation.
It is important to emphasize, that my data is of the ordinal type — that is, the distance
between the scale values is not meaningful or objectively measurable. What is presented above
is an arbitrary numerical scale where each value has no significance beyond its ability to
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establish a ranking. In other words, we cannot claim that Retention is more foreignizing than
Retention with Extratextual Specification to the same degree as, say, Functional Substitution is
more foreignizing than Contextual Substitution.
After identifying a translation shift in each specific coupled pair, I assign points to it
according to the domestication/foreignization scale. Each data point is then included in an Excel
table for further statistical analysis. The collected data look as follows:
Figure 7. Fragment of the Excel file with collected data
As I do only the most basic statistical operations on my data, I have decided to use the analytical
tools available in Excel and an online calculator at http://www.socscistatistics.com. Sorting out
my data according to my needs (by translator, by source text, by source language etc.), I identify
the measures of central tendency. Since I am dealing with ordinal data, the mean will not yield
a meaningful result, thus it is not calculated in my study. Instead, the median39 and mode40 are
identified for different subsets of the data. To find out whether the difference between two
groups of data is statistically significant, I use the Mann–Whitney U test — a nonparametric
39 The median is the midpoint in a set of scores separating the higher half of data points from the lower half. 40 The mode is the value that appears most often. In the case of my data, it simply shows the most frequent translation shift for a given dataset.
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test that does not require the assumption of normal distributions. My calculations are carried
out at http://www.socscistatistics.com/tests/mannwhitney/ with the null hypothesis that there is
no difference in the distributions of scores in the two groups being compared. With samples
exceeding 200 values, I use R to test my data.
In addition to that, I identify the frequency distributions of translation shifts for the
compared datasets. These are illustrated with bar charts. I also calculate the percentages of
domestication versus foreignization shifts in each subset.
5.4.3 Interpretation of the Quantitative Findings When evaluating the quantitative findings, I hypothesize about the reasons why differences are
observed or fail to be observed in each part of the quantitative study. While doing this, I keep
in mind that the notion of representativeness is difficult to apply to literary works, thus my
observations cannot be used to make statements about translation norms.
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6 Comparative Qualitative Analysis of the Coupled Pairs 6.1 Translation of geographic realia 6.1.1 Realia denoting objects of physical geography
This class of realia includes phenomena of physical geography characteristic to the source-
language country (e.g. степь, тайга, тундра). It does not cover toponyms, since my
interpretation of realia leaves out proper names. The group is distinctive in that the few words
comprising it are always treated with Retention in the selected TTs (8 out of 8 occurrences).
This is probably due to the fact that they are included in Norwegian and English monolingual
dictionaries and are familiar to the majority of TT readers.
RU ST: А после тундры тайга. (MS)
NO TT: Og etter tundraen kommer taigaen.
EN TT: And after the tundra comes the taiga.
It is unlikely that translators perceive these lexical items as problematic in translation. The only
reason they are categorized as realia in my study is that they retain some of the exotic color
they originally had when they were borrowed: these words are strongly associated with Russia
(or Kazakhstan, Mongolia, etc.). Moreover, my criteria of familiarity (see Section 5.2) require
loanwords to be of rather high frequency in the TL in order to be excluded from my data (words
like tsar, vodka, rubel/rouble, etc.). Steppe, tundra and taiga do not meet this criterion.
6.1.2 Realia denoting geographical objects associated with human activity
This small group of realia (e.g. арык, курган) is different from the previous one only in that
the geographical objects which the realia refer to emerged as a result of human activity. An
interesting example is арык — a sort of irrigation canal widespread in Central Asia, Kazakhstan,
Transcaucasia and some other regions. The first time this word occurs in Ulitskaia’s Medeia i
ee deti (in a description of Tatars’ life in Crimea), it is rendered in a foreignizing way in the
English TT:
RU ST: Я рассказывала ему, что помнила о бывших моих соседях по Поселку, о Галии, о Мустафе,
о дедушке Ахмете-арычнике, который с рассвета до заката чистил здешние арыки, каждую
соринку, как из глаза, вытаскивал (…). (LUM)
NO TT: Jeg fortalte ham at jeg godt kunne huske de gamle naboene mine i Landsbyen, både Galja og
Mustafa og gamle Vanne-Akhmet, som fra morgen til kveld var opptatt med å rense vanningskanalene
her, han fisket opp hvert støvgrann som var det øyerusk (…).
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EN TT: I told him what I could remember about my old neighbors in the Village, Galya and Mustapha,
and Grandfather Akhmet the ditcher who cleaned the irrigation aryks here from dawn to dusk, pulling
out every speck of rubbish like a mote from someone’s eye.
As seen above, арык is rendered with Explicitation by Short Paraphrase — vanningskanal
(irrigation canal) — in the Norwegian TT and with Retention coupled with Intratextual Short
Specification — irrigation aryk — in the English TT. The latter rendition has an exoticizing
effect: it signals that the object being discussed is culture-specific and in one way or another
different from similar irrigation systems known in the TL community. At the same time the
profession description — арычник (rendered as ditcher) — helps the reader to picture
something resembling a ditch and not become confused by the exotic word. However, at the
second occurrence, the word is translated in a more domesticating manner — as irrigation ditch,
and another time it is rendered simply as ditch. This example demonstrates that it is far from
being a rule that the translator, after having introduced an exotic term (with some specification),
continues to use it further in the TT. Instead, he or she may resort to domesticating translation
procedures.
There are only 7 realia of this type found in my data (3 types and 7 tokens), which
precludes from a valid statistical comparison.
6.1.3 Realia denoting endemic species
The last group of geographic realia describes endemic species, i.e. species native and restricted
to a certain region (e.g. битюг, текинец). Like the previous two subcategories, this group does
not allow for any statistical comparison between Norwegian and English TTs, but offers a few
interesting examples:
RU ST: Мужичок хлестнул своего битюга кнутом, тот тряхнул косматой гривой, фыркнул и
побежал вдоль широкой улицы (...). (BA)
NO TT: Vannselgeren ga arbeidsgampen sin et slag med pisken så den fnyste og ristet den lodne manen,
så løp den bortover den brede gaten (...).
EN TT: The man lashed his dray horse with his whip; it shook its tangled mane, snorted and set off along
the broad street (...).
Битюг is a breed of draft horse that was bred in the 18th century in villages along the Bitiug
river in the Voronezh province. Both translators choose not to retain the specific breed name
and opt for a more general expression (Explicitation by Short Paraphrase), as they probably
find the function of the horse more relevant in the given context.
The second example concerns another breed of horse:
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RU ST: Я пробрался к рыжему текинцу Георгия Александровича, взял его под уздцы (...) и молча
сунул его высочеству письмо от Линда. (BA)
NO TT: Jeg tok meg frem til den rødlige Tekinz-hingsten til Georgij Aleksandrovitsj, tok tak i bislet (...),
og stakk taust brevet fra Lind til Hans Høyhet.
EN TT: I worked my way through to Georgii Alexandrovich’s sorrel Turkmen, took hold of its bridle
(...) and passed the note from Lind to His Highness without speaking.
Текинец, also known as ахалтекинская лошадь, is a horse breed bred by the tribes of
Turkmenistan, the Teke people. It was regarded as an elite riding breed in the Russian Empire.
The Norwegian translator treats the word with Retention and Intratextual Short Specification
— a transliteration is followed by the word hingst (stallion). The capitalization of Tekinz is
probably meant to indicate that the lexical item is borrowed. The English solution simply points
to the origin of the breed — Turkmen [horse] — and can be classified as an incomplete Short
Paraphrase with an omitted head or as a Hypernym.
The other time текинец is encountered in the novel, it is treated differently by the
translators: RU ST: Быстро пробежал глазами строчки, тронул текинца шпорами в поджарые бока и стал
медленно догонять одинокую фигуру государя. (BA)
NO TT: Han leste raskt gjennom linjene, lot sporene røre de muskuløse hestesidene og begynte langsomt
å ta innpå tsarens ensomme skikkelse.
EN TT: He quickly ran his eye over the lines of writing, touched his spurs to the lean, muscular sides of
his mount and began slowly overhauling the solitary figure of the sovereign.
Here the horse plays an even more marginal role than in the previous utterance where текинец
is mentioned for the first time. The focus here is on the character’s actions that follow in quick
succession: пробежал глазами, тронул шпорами, стал догонять. Moreover, the second
occurrence of текинец comes almost immediately after the first one, thus it is no wonder that
the translators choose a Hypernym as their translation solution: hest (horse) and mount.
6.1.4 Translation procedures for rendering geographic realia — Summary
Geographic realia are the least represented in my data (only 9 types and 19 tokens), therefore it
is difficult to draw any conclusions from my observations. The only claim that can be made is
that the most foreignizing solutions (Retention and Retention with Specification) are not
uncommon for this category of realia, whether they are known in the TL as loanwords (like
steppe, taiga, tundra) or not (e.g. aryk, Tekinz).
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6.2 Translation of ethnographic realia 6.2.1 Realia describing food
In this section, I will look at different ways in which translators handle ethnographic realia
denoting food, drinks, tobacco products and catering establishments. In a fictional text, dining
and cooking are frequent motifs, sometimes merely setting a scene, other times portraying
characters through what and how they eat. Here is one example in which dining is used as a
way to illuminate a character:
RU ST: Странно устроены люди: вот он не знает, что с его сыном, жив ли вообще, и при этом
сидит тут за самоваром, уплетает пирожки с печенкой и рассказывает анекдоты. (MS)
NO TT: Menneskene er underlig laget: Han vet ikke hvordan det er med hans egen sønn, om han lever
og i det hele tatt, og enda kan han sitte her ved samovaren, mumse i seg leverpiroger og fortelle anekdoter.
EN TT: People are oddly made. Here he doesn’t know what’s happening with his son, whether he’s even
alive, and at the same time he sits here at the samovar, tucks away liver pies, and tells funny stories.
The scene takes place during the Civil War, at a soirée in high society. Although the broader
context suggests that the narrator, the author of a diary, takes a liking to this guest, the utterance
above contains a hint of condemnation which is expressed by a mismatch between how a person
in grief should act and the way he actually behaves — making jokes and eating with good
appetite. The act of eating reveals the character’s carelessness. What exactly he is eating is of
minor importance here. However, it is interesting to note that, unlike the English translator, the
Norwegian one treats the Russian word in a foreignizing way.
Incidentally, пирог/пироги and пирожок/пирожки are among the most frequent food
realia occurring in my data — 19 tokens, 15 of which are included in my data.41 An interesting
tendency can be observed when looking at the translation solutions for these two closely related
words: in 12 out of 15 cases, Norwegian translators use Retention — pirog; at the same time,
the Retention procedure is used only once in the English TTs while pie remains the most
common translation solution for this realia:
RU ST: А пирожки, кстати говоря, — дрянь порядочная. (MS)
NO TT: De pirogene var forresten noe ordentlig skitt.
EN TT: The pirozhki, by the way, are perfectly awful.
41 As has been indicated in Section 5.2, for each TT I only include 3 randomly chosen tokens per one type in my data.
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The utterance comes from the same scene at the soirée described above, where the salon hostess
offers her guests home-baked пирожки. Пирожки are mentioned four times during the scene,
and only at the fourth occurrence where the diary’s author expresses her dislike for the served
food, the English translator suddenly makes use of Retention. This is a somewhat odd solution
since the word pirozhki in the TT utterance above clearly refers to something mentioned before.
However, previously the pasties have been referred to as pies, which disrupts the cohesion of
the text. It is difficult to explain why the English translator employs a foreignizing solution in
this particular sentence and nowhere else. As for the Norwegian TTs, the fact that the translators
almost invariably choose Retention to render пирог and пирожок may be an indication of the
loanword pirog becoming well-assimilated in Norwegian.
Another sign of good assimilation of the word pirog in Norwegian may be its use in
explanation of another realia: in the endnotes of Medea og hennes barn, tsjeburek is defined as
a kind of flat pirog with meat filling. Moreover, pirog is used in the explicitation of the realia
кулебяка:
RU ST: Предложенная ему чашка бульона с куском вчерашней кулебяки и гречневая каша,
сваренная как будто в русской печи, произвели глубокое впечатление на Ивана Исаевича (...).
(LUM)
NO TT: Han fikk servert en kopp buljong med en bit fiskepirog fra dagen før og bokhvetegrøt som
smakte som om den var laget i en russisk ovn, og dette gjorde et dypt inntrykk på Ivan Isajevitsj (...).
This translation procedure is not easy to classify. On the one hand, it contains the element of
foreignization (pirog), on the other hand, this element is not a retention of the original word. I
will treat this and similar cases as Explicitation by Short Paraphrase, not as Retention with
Intratextual Short Specification like in the case of the English translation solution for this realia
— meat kulebyaka. In other words, I regard meat kulebyaka as a more foreignizing solution
than fiskepirog (fish pirog).
Other English examples of Retention with Intratextual Short Specification employed to
render food realia include: лаваш → lavash bread; бородинский → Borodinsky loaf,
Borodino loaf; чахохбили → chakhokhbili stew; папироса → papirosa cigarettes; чебурек
→ cheburek meat pastry; самса → samsa dumplings. As mentioned in the discussion of this
procedure (see Section 5.3.2.3), it is more frequent in the English translations included in my
data, which may be explained by the structural differences between English and Norwegian.
While in English a little-known loanword may easily be combined with a noun premodifier or
serve as a modifier for another noun, it is not as common in Norwegian, because Norwegian
tends to form compounds in such cases. Although, strictly speaking, nothing prevents
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Norwegian translators from creating compound neologisms with loanwords (e.g.
fiskekulebjaka), these are perhaps considered too odd and a potential hindrance in the reading
process. Better-known loanwords, however, can be used in compounds as fiskepirog
demonstrates.
Let us have a look at an utterance where two food realia are used — пастила and
чебурек. Both are treated with Retention in the Norwegian and English TTs, but in slightly
different ways:
RU ST: Он купил пересушенный сверток сливовой домашней пастилы, грубо приготовленной на
горячем железном листе, — любимое детское лакомство, — зелень и большой пакет чебуреков.
(LUM)
NO TT: Han hadde kjøpt en pakke med altfor tørr, hjemmelaget plommepastila, som ble laget på enkelt
vis på en varm jernplate — det var søtsaker han hadde likt så godt da han var liten — og så hadde han
kjøpt forskjellig grønt og en stor pose med tsjebureker. [+ endnote]
EN TT: He had bought a pack of homemade plum pastilla scrolls which had been left to dry in the sun
for rather too long, a favorite treat of the children; some spring greens; and a large packet of cheburek
meat pastries.
Here two different ways of specification that accompany Retention are used to explain чебурек.
The Norwegian translator adds an extratextual comment in the endnotes. Since there is no
indication in the main text that one can find a glossary at the end of the book, the solution almost
looks like Retention proper. The English translator makes use of Retention with Detailed
Specification where both the type of food and the main ingredient is indicated. The second time
чебурек is occurred, it is rendered as simply cheburek, which confirms the observation that
Retention with Specification may serve as introduction of a new word followed then by
Retention proper. The case of пастила is also interesting. The context offers quite a few
indications of what пастила is like — it is obviously a treat, made of fruit (in this case plum)
through letting it dry and it may be homemade. All these details allow a translator to use
Retention with no additional specification (pastila in Norwegian and pastilla in English). The
English rendering of this word, incidentally, may produce unrelated associations: pastilla is
defined in the Oxford dictionary as “a type of Moroccan meat pie, typically filled with spiced
pigeon meat and apricots and having a sugared crust”.42 However, this word is so little known,
that only the most erudite readers would be surprised to find it in a Russian novel.
42 https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/pastilla
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Another example where the context provides enough details to allow a use of Retention
is below:
RU ST: Пасху делала мама, и она у нее получилась какая-то ненастоящая. Няня, когда разминала
пасху и перекладывала в пасочницу, всегда протягивала мне деревянную ложку: “Оближи!”. И я
облизывала. И ничего вкуснее этого не было! (MS)
NO TT: Mamma laget påskekaken, men hun fikk den ikke ordentlig til, den ble liksom ikke ekte. Dadda
pleide alltid når hun hadde rørt sammen påskekaken og lagt den i påskekakeformen, å rekke meg sleiven:
“Vær så god og slikk!” Og jeg slikket den. Ingenting smakte bedre enn det!
EN TT: Mama made the paskha, but it didn’t come out like the real thing. Nanny, when she kneaded
the paskha and put it in its tin, always handed me the wooden spoon: “Lick!” And I would lick it. And
there was nothing more delicious!
The narrator describes the baking of a traditional Easter cake, пасха, while her regret that
mother did not seem to do it “the right way” expresses her grief for her dead nanny. In this
context, it is largely irrelevant what the cake is made of or looks like; the occasion and the
narrator’s mourning are more important. Thus, the English TT retains the exotic name of the
cake while the Norwegian TT features Explicitation by Short Paraphrase — påskekake (Easter
cake). It is also worth noting that the other realia in this excerpt — пасочница (a traditional
wooden form designed for making paskha) — is rendered with different degree of specification
in Norwegian and English: the Norwegian version provides an Extended Paraphrase
(påskekakeform) while the English solution is a simple Hypernym (tin). Tin can also be viewed
as a Functional Substitute of пасочница, since it is difficult to determine hierarchical relations
between tin (normally a metal container) and пасочница (a wooden baking form of a very
specific design).
When Explicitation is employed, translators differ significantly in how many semantic
features they wish to make explicit, but they typically try to avoid too wordy explicitation.
Consider the translation solutions for сушки (traditional dry bread rings, typically served with
tea):
RU ST: Я заметила, что за весь вечер мой кавалер, без конца предлагавший мне сушки, не
перекинулся с женой и словом. (MS)
NO TT: Jeg la merke til at min kavaler, som hele tiden satt og bød meg på tørre småkringler, ikke
vekslet et eneste ord med sin kone hele aften.
EN TT: I noticed that the entire evening my cavalier, who kept offering me biscuits, did not exchange a
word with his wife.
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In the above example, the difference in approach to Explicitation is evident. Сушки are given
an extended specification in Norwegian — tørre småkringler where they are explained through
a Nordic realia (kringler) coupled with some characteristic features (dry, small). This
description gives the reader an idea of size, consistency and to some extent shape of the food
featured in the scene (although kringle has a knotted shape while сушки are of simple ring
shape). The English translator, on the other hand, uses Functional Substitution (biscuits)
leaving out the specific features of сушки. Both translation solutions, however, are introduced
rather unobtrusively so that the reader is not distracted from observing the character’s behavior:
his flirting with the narrator while ignoring his wife.
When paraphrasing food realia, translators often find a counterpart in the TC cuisine
which is closest to the Russian dish and in addition bring into focus one or two key ingredients:
пряник → honey cake, винегрет → rødbetsalat og poteter (beet salad and potatoes), взвар →
fruit compote, fruktsuppe (fruit soup). Other characteristics may be included, too — for
instance, the size: расстегаи → small fish pies; or the way food is prepared: винегрет →
pickled salad, балык → røkt stør (smoked sturgeon), буженина → kokt skinke (cooked ham),
заливное → kjøtt i aspik (meat in aspic), etc. In rare cases, the occasion or the season when
food is served comes into focus: пасха → påskekake (Easter cake), окрошка → summer soup,
sommersuppe.
In the Section 3.9.1, where I discussed the local classification of realia, the distinction
was made between internal and external realia. By the latter I understand realia denoting
concepts which are foreign to both SC and TC. For the Russian–Norwegian and Russian–
English language pairs, examples are the Japanese realia sensei, samurai and harakiri
encountered in Akunin’s Koronatsiia. The boundaries between external and internal realia,
however, are not clear-cut, as words and concepts often cross cultural borders and become
assimilated in a new language community. The demarcation process in this case is inevitably
rather arbitrary. In Section 3.9.1, I specified that words brought to the Russian vocabulary
through cultures of various minorities that are or were indigenous to Russia, the Russian
Empire or the Soviet Union, are regarded as internal realia in my study (e.g. аул, арык, балык,
чача, etc.). As far as food realia are concerned, since Russia has traditionally been a region
where various ethnic communities lived and interacted, its cuisine is a result of mixture of
influences: e.g. чебуреки, шашлыки are not of Russian origin but today regarded by many as
Russian food. In addition to that, many dishes which remain perceived as distinctly non-
Russian and slightly exotic, for instance those of Georgian cuisine, are so familiar to most
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Russians that words naming these dishes can hardly be seen as external realia in a Russian text.
I have included this sort of lexis in my data. Consider the below examples from this category:
RU ST: А Михаил уже налил стопку чачи. Он все умел по-хорошему делать, это Валерий знал от
своего соседа Витьки: чачу гнать, мясо коптить, рыбу солить. (LUM)
NO TT: Mikhail hadde likevel skjenket i et drammeglass med tsjatsja, hjemmelaget druebrennevin.
Han var flink til å lage allting skikkelig, det hadde Valerij fått vite av naboen Vitjka: Han kunne lage
druebrennevin, røyke kjøtt og salte fisk.
EN TT: Mikhail had meanwhile already poured her a glass of chacha. He was good at all sorts of practical
things, as Valerii had already heard from his neighbor Vitka: distilling chacha, smoking meat, salting
fish.
A clear difference in the degree of foreignization can be observed in the renditions of чача.
The English translator simply retains the Georgian word with no further specification —
perhaps relying on the context which reveals that chacha is a homemade alcoholic drink. The
Norwegian TT demonstrates a different, more domesticating approach: at the first occurrence,
чача is not merely retained but also given a rather detailed specification — hjemmelaget
druebrennevin (homemade grape liquor). One might expect that, since чача has just been
explained, at the next occurrence it may be treated with Retention proper. However, this does
not happen — instead, the translator uses a shorter version of the specification given earlier.
Here is another interesting example of Caucasian realia treated in a more foreignizing
way in the English TT compared to the Norwegian TT:
RU ST: Отломив кусок лаваша, она макала его в чахохбили и ела так аккуратно, что никакой
оранжевой обводки вокруг рта у нее не образовывалось (…). (LUM)
NO TT: Hun brøt et stykke av den myke brødleiven, dyppet den i hønsegrytens tomatsaus og spiste
så pertentlig at det ikke ble den minste oransje stripe rundt munnen hennes (…).
EN TT: Breaking off a piece of lavash bread, she dipped it in the chakhokhbili stew and ate it so
delicately that she didn’t get the slightest orange outline around her mouth.
Two realia used in the ST above — лаваш and чахохбили — though culturally quite well-
assimilated in Russia, can be said to preserve some exotic touch. As we can see, these are
rendered in rather different ways in the English and Norwegian TTs. While in English there is
an attempt to transfer the exotic element through Retention with a Short Specification — lavash
bread and chakhokhbili stew — in Norwegian the original names of the foods are eliminated,
and Explicitation by Extended Paraphrase is used for both realia. Descriptive renderings like
the one found in the Norwegian TT, gives readers a nearly sensory experience — they can try
to picture how myk brødleiv (soft flatbread) tastes when it is dipped into hønsegrytens
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tomatsaus (tomato sauce of the chicken stew). English-speaking readers, on the other hand,
will not have a very good idea of the taste and feel of лаваш and чахохбили, enjoying the
exotic names instead. Чахохбили is encountered two more times in the novel and is rendered
in the most foreignizing way these times — simply as chakhokhbili.
It is remarkable that лаваш is rendered twice with Retention in the English TT, while a
similar sort of bread — лепёшка — is not. This is an indication that лаваш is, in fact, perceived
by the translator as more exotic and therefore as an “external realia”. Here is how лепёшка is
treated in the translations of Medeia i ee deti:
RU ST: “Потом пили кофе, а когда рассвело, он умылся, я ему испекла лепешку, консервы дала
московские, с лета еще оставшиеся, но он не взял: все равно, говорит, отберут.” (LUM)
NO TT: “Så drakk vi kaffe, og da det grydde av dag, vasket han seg, og jeg bakte en lefsekake til ham
og ville sende med ham hermetikk fra Moskva, men han ville ikke ta noe: Det er ingen vits, sa han, de
tar det bare fra meg.”
EN TT: “Then we drank some coffee, and when dawn broke, he had a wash. I baked him a cake and
wanted to give him some tinned food from Moscow which I still had from last summer, but he wouldn’t
take it. He said they would only confiscate it.”
In her letter, Medeia is describing an episode of her Tatar guest being deported as part of the
ethnic cleansing in Crimea in 1944. She bakes him лепёшка — a sort of flatbread, normally a
little salty or sour. For some reason, in both TTs this realia is interpreted as a dessert type of
food — lefsekake and cake. This semantic shift creates a peculiar image: a person being
deported is given a cake as a travel snack. Another occurrence of лепёшка receives an even
more interesting treatment:
RU ST: И действительно, когда последняя предобеденная посетительница ушла, он, разложив
свои тяжеловесные бутерброды рядом с Медеиными тонкими лепешками, переложенными
первой зеленью, покачал головой, пощелкал языком и спросил (...). (LUM)
NO TT: Og faktisk, da den siste formiddagspasienten var gått, la han sine tunge smørbrødskiver utover
bordet ved siden av Medeas tynne brødbiter dekket av vårens første grønt, ristet på hodet, smekket med
tungen og spurte (...).
EN TT: (...) and sure enough, when the last patient before lunch left, he spread out his doorstep
sandwiches next to Medea’s slim, flat scones sandwiched around the first spring onions, shook his head,
clicked his tongue, and asked (...).
Above is a description of a lunch break of a dentist and his assistant Medeia. The narrator
highlights the contrast between Medeia’s thin лепёшки and the doctor’s large sandwiches. The
Norwegian translator employs the generic brødbiter (bread pieces) to render this realia. The
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English translation, on the other hand, is even more domesticating: here Functional Substitution
(scones) with the specification flat is used. This combination — flat scones — is problematic
for several reasons, in my view. First, the use of a distinctly British realia in the Russian context
may come off rather odd. Second, scones are typically not flat and have a very different shape
compared to лепёшки. Thus, the phrase sounds as if the scones were not very successful —
that is, did not rise in the oven. Further, when they are described as “sandwiched around the
first spring onions”, the dish starts to look even odder: scones that are used as layers with
something in between is nothing less than difficult to imagine.
The last word I would like to discuss in this section is блины and its diminutive form
блинчики. It is a rather interesting case because many cuisines across the world have their own
versions of pancakes, with minor variations, and it is questionable whether the names of this
dish in different countries can be granted the status of realia. The Norwegian, British or
American cuisines are no exception in this respect — their pannekaker and pancakes are very
similar to Russian блины. However, for one reason or another, блины is often perceived as a
realia word in English translations and it is not uncommon that the word is rendered with
Retention (bliny/blini, blinchiks). As a loanword, bliny/blini is also included in English
dictionaries. In contrast, in Norwegian the word блины is typically rendered with either
pannekaker (pancakes) or lapper (small pancakes). In my data, the following pattern is
observed:
Table 8. Translation solutions for блины/блинчики in my data set
Norwegian English
pannekaker: 4 occurrences pancakes: 4 occurrences
lapper: 2 occurrences blini/blinchiks: 3 occurrences
0 (omission): 1 occurrence
In other words, блины is not seen as a Russian specialty and never treated with Retention in
the Norwegian translations in my dataset despite being included in Det Norske Akademis
ordbok (Dictionary of the Norwegian Academy). There, it is defined as follows: “liten
pannekake laget av bokhvete, egg og smør, ofte servert med kaviar (rogn) og f.eks. rømme,
salat, løk, pepper; russisk pannekake” (small pancake made from buckwheat, egg and butter,
often served with caviar (spawn) and, for example, sour cream, lettuce, onion, pepper; Russian
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pancake).43 This example demonstrates difficulties inherent in defining the boundaries of the
concept of realia, particularly when a very similar referent exists in the TC. In that case, the TL
translators may or may not regard the lexical item as a realia depending on whether they see
the SL word as having local/historical “color”. What sometimes looks like domestication may
simply be translator’s interpretation of the SL and TL words as equivalents.
A comparative statistical analysis of the Norwegian and English translation solutions
for food realia yields the following results for my data set:
Table 9. Rendering of the Russian food realia in the English and Norwegian TTs
Norwegian English
Median = 4
Mode = 4
Total = 119
Median = 4
Mode = 2
Total = 116
Table 9 demonstrates comparable results for the two data subsets: the medians are the same
and equal to 4, which corresponds to Explicitation by Short Paraphrase in my model. The
modes are, however, different: for the Norwegian TTs, it is 4, while for the English TTs it is 2
(corresponding to Functional Substitution). The Mann–Whitney U test confirms that the
difference between the two groups is not significant. A further analysis of the translation
procedures distribution shows, among other things, that:
• Retention proper is more frequently used in the English TTs;
• Retention with Extratextual Specification is only used in the Norwegian TTs;
• Retention with Intratextual Short Specification is used 8 times in the English TTs versus
1 time in the Norwegian translations;
• Two types of Explicitation (by Hypernym and Short Paraphrase) are more frequent in
the Norwegian TTs while Functional Substitution is more typical of the English TTs.
The most important observation is that, compared to other thematic categories of realia that are
large enough to allow a statistical analysis, the food category has one of the highest frequencies
of various types of Retention (with or without specification): 27.5% for Norwegian and 33.6%
43 https://www.naob.no/ordbok/blini Russian блины, of course, may be big and are most often made of wheat flour.
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for English. This is perhaps due to the expectation that exotic names of food are tolerated by
the readers of translations better than loanwords describing other objects and phenomena.
6.2.2 Realia denoting clothing
Elizabeth Wilson, a scholar of fashion and modernity, notes in her book: “Clothes are among
the most fraught objects in the material world of things, since they are so closely involved with
the human body and the human life cycle. They are objects, but they are also images. They
communicate more subtly than any objects and commodities, precisely because of that intimate
relationship to our bodies and our selves (...)” (Wilson 2013: vii). Indeed, apart from performing
its primary function, clothing often carries a lot of additional information — about the status,
age, gender, nationality and individuality of its wearer along with the setting features: season,
historical epoch, formality of the situation, etc. In a literary text, clothes are often a way of
indirect characterization revealing a character’s personality. For instance, in Ivan Goncharov’s
novel, Oblomov’s indispensable well-worn robe becomes the character’s second skin and
embodies his gentle nature, dislike for change, personal stagnation and apathy.
Realia denoting clothing, footwear, headwear, jewellery, etc. (e.g. гимнастерка,
валенки, треух, косоворотка, тулуп, камзол, тужурка, башлык) are highly challenging for
literary translators. On the one hand, one wishes, where possible, to transfer the exotic clothing
terms to the TT in order to preserve the “local flavor” of the story; on the other hand, if the ST
author’s choice of clothing communicates any additional information, this needs to be conveyed
to the TT reader. A good illustration of how items of clothing carry important connotations is
found in Shishkin’s Venerin volos:
RU ST: Запомнились мужики в котелках, мастеровые в нахлобученных шляпах всех фасонов —
кто-то несет охапку картузов. На оборванном мальчишке — новенькая гимназическая
фуражка. Недалеко находился шляпный магазин. (MS)
NO TT: Jeg kommer til å tenke på noen menn med skalk på hodet, noen arbeidere med forskjellige
hatter trukket godt ned over ørene — en av dem bærer et helt fange med skyggeluer. En liten fillefrans
springer forbi med en splitter ny skoleuniformslue på hodet. Det var en hattebutikk like i nærheten.
EN TT: I still remember muzhiks in derby hats, factory hands in every style of jammed-on hats — and
someone carrying an armful of peaked caps. A raggedy boy is wearing a nice new school cap. There
was a hat store not far away.
In her memoirs, the main character describes riots in the Russian capital on the eve of the
Revolution. In the above scene, she witnesses looting — commoners stealing hats from a shop.
In order to understand the tragic irony of the scene, the reader may need to know that poor
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people in Russia did not wear котелки (fancy bowler hats) while their children normally had
no access to education and hence did not wear uniform caps. Although the word котелки may
not qualify as realia, it is interesting to see whether this clash between the low-class people and
their stolen hats has been transferred to the TTs. In the Norwegian text, where мужики is
rendered with the generic word menn, this clash disappears and only becomes noticeable when
workers wearing hats enter the scene. In the English TT, on the other hand, the word мужики
perceived as describing a culture-specific social class, is retained — muzhiks. Here the
tragicomic clash will not be lost on the TT readers, provided they know that muzhiks refer to
Russian peasants.
An interesting example of clothing realia being an important characterization feature
can be found in Tsypkin’s Leto v Badene. Here the narrator has been describing Dostoevsky’s
stay in Frankfurt when he suddenly moves the narrative to 20th-century Frankfurt:
RU ST: (...) через сто лет с небольшим в аэропорт этого же города под охраной восьми штатских
с пистолетами в задних карманах, на самолете Аэрофлота (...), на самолете этой линии в аэропорт
этого же города прибыл человек среднего роста в вятской дубленке с бородой, явно старившей
его, и с двумя продольными горестными морщинами, прорезавшими его лоб, хорошей еще
шевелюрой, держа в руках меховую шапку-ушанку (…). (LT)
NO TT: (...) litt over hundre år senere, på flyplassen til denne samme byen, under bevoktning av åtte
sivilkledde med pistol i baklommen, på et fly fra Aeroflot (...), på dette flyet i denne ruten til flyplassen i
denne byen ankom en mann av middels høyde i pelsjakke, med skjegg som tydelig gjorde ham eldre,
med to langsgående sorgtunge furer som skar over pannen hans, med en vakker hårmanke, i hånden holdt
han en pelslue med øreklaffer (...).
The above text is part of a long excerpt devoted to Solzhenitsyn (though his name is never
mentioned in the novel), which is, for reasons unknown to us, completely omitted in the English
TT. It describes a real-life scene of Solzhenitsyn’s arrival to West Germany after he has been
stripped of his Soviet citizenship and expelled from the USSR. His distinctly Russian winter
clothes — вятская дубленка and меховая шапка-ушанка — stand in stark contrast to the
elegant light-grey coat of the “famous German writer” (Heinrich Böll) who meets Solzhenitsyn
at the airport. In the Norwegian TT, the local specification вятский (coming from Viatka region
where a big fur factory is located) is missing, дублёнка is rendered with approximated
Explicitation by Short Paraphrase — pelsjakke (fur jacket) — and шапка-ушанка is translated
with a сalque. Although pelsjakke does not describe вятская дубленка with precision, a reader
of the TT will be able to imagine that Solzhenitsyn’s outfit looked somewhat out-of-place in
the West.
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In my dataset, clothes realia are almost never rendered with Retention. One of few
exceptions is кокошник retained in the English translation with a one-word specification —
kokoshnik head-dress (for discussion of this realia see p. 32). The following is another
exception:
RU ST: А знаешь, что теперь входит в моду? Последний шик — ботинки с крагами, какие носят
офицеры авиации и бронетанковых войск. Но это все мечты, а мы тут носим валенки и бурки —
это такие теплые кавказские сапоги из черного войлока. (MS)
NO TT: Vet du forresten hva som er i ferd med å komme på moten nu? Det siste som er chic, er støvler
med løse skafter, slike som flyoffiserer og offiserer i panserdivisjonene bruker. Men det er noe vi bare
kan drømme om, her går vi bare i filtstøvler og burki — det er slike varme kaukasiske støvler sydd av
sort filt.
EN TT: You know what’s coming into fashion now? The latest craze is boots with leggings, the kind
officers in aviation and armored troops wear. But these are all dreams. Here we’re wearing felt boots and
burkas, which are a kind of warm Caucasian boot made of black felt.
In the example above, a soldier of World War I, writing a letter to his girlfriend, complains that
the only types of shoes available to him and his comrades are валенки and бурки. While
валенки are rendered with Explicitation by Short Paraphrase (and it is the case for most
occurrences of валенки), бурки are retained, which is due to the fact that, in the ST, the word
is explained to the addressee of the letter as something rather exotic. Thus, both translators use
a loanword44 followed by the explanation given in the Russian ST. The original definition,
however, is not quite correct. The narrator (or, perhaps, the author) of the ST must be confusing
the word бурка, traditional Caucasian felt or fur coat worn by men, with бурки — a type of
footwear that was designed in the late 19th century in Belarus (not in the Caucasus) and has
since been produced there. Бурки refers to a kind of warm high boots with a felt top and a
leather foot which were not widely used by Russians, particularly not by upper-class Russians,
in the early 20th century — hence, the explanation in the letter — but became very popular in
the 1940–1960s.
When it comes to валенки, my data (13 occurrences of the word) and the RuN Corpus
show that the paraphrasing rendering — as felt boots and filtstøvler — has become the
established English and Norwegian translation of this realia. An exception is found in a context
where валенок is used in a colloquial idiom:
44 Note, however, the difference in the word’s ending: in the Norwegian TT, the Russian plural form is preserved (burki), while in the English TT, the word is adjusted grammatically and given the English plural ending (burkas).
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RU ST: Он рассвирепел: “Это только некоторым умникам кажется, что вселенная проста, как
валенок (…).” (MS)
NO TT: Han ble vill av raseri: “Det er bare noen sånne viktigperer som tror at universet er like enkelt
som en filtstøvel (…).”
EN TT: He flew into a rage. “It’s just a few smart alecks who think the universe is as simple as an old
shoe (…).”
Whereas in the Norwegian TT the realia is translated in the common way (filtstøvel), the English
TT renders it with a different paraphrase — old shoe. When reflecting on the origin of the
expression “прост как валенок”, it is tempting to speculate that the comparison in this idiom
alludes to the simple design of valenki. However, a different explanation is more likely: валенок
(or сибирский валенок) is sometimes used figuratively to refer to a simple-minded,
unsophisticated person, which probably has to do with the fact that валенки were primarily
worn by peasants or, alternatively, simply with the fact that валенок is an inanimate object
being compared with a human being. The expression “прост как валенок” was primarily used
to describe people, and later its use was extended to include all kinds of matters. The TT
solution makes use of an English idiom, which is similarly used to refer to people — “as simple
as an old shoe” — and rarely refers to other matters. Both the original and the TT utterances
employ vivid images that convey the expressive character of the speech, but the association
with Russia is arguably missing in both TTs.
The word валенки often appears in Russian literature in scenes where it is important to
emphasize the simplicity and unpretentiousness of the character’s appearance. Below is an
example of this sort (involving, besides валенки, another interesting realia — бушлат):
RU ST: В лагере сгорела столовая, и площадку между водокачкой и бараком обнесли оградой,
внутри поставили столы и скамьи — ели теперь на воздухе под открытым небом, и старуха в
грязном бушлате, в сгнивших валенках, вздохнула: совсем как кафе Флориана и Квадри на
площади Святого Марка! (MS)
NO TT: Spisesalen i leiren brant ned, og det ble satt opp en innhegning på plassen mellom
vannpumpehuset og brakka, der stilte de utover stoler og benker — nå måtte de spise under åpen himmel,
og en gammel kvinne i skitten losjakke og lurvete filtstøvler sukket: Det er aldeles som kafeene Florian
& Quadri på Markusplassen!
EN TT: The chow hall burned down at the camp, the area between the pump and barracks was fenced in,
and inside they put the tables and benches. Now we ate outside under an open sky, and an old woman
wearing a dirty pea jacket and rotted felt boots sighed: Just like Caffe Florian and Caffe Quadri on piazza
San Marco!
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The excerpt is not part of a meaningful episode in the novel but is included in a several-page
long paragraph where numerous unrelated (or seemingly unrelated) utterances emerge one after
another with no logical connection, so that the reader does not know anything about the scene
other than what is included in the sentence above. The setting is most likely a labor camp where
бушлат and валенки were common clothing for both male and female prisoners. Бушлат is
interpreted by both translators as a kind of peacoat, originally worn by sailors. However, in
Russian this word became a slang term for warm padded jackets that are part of the land forces
uniform, and later, for a similar type of quilted uniform jackets worn by prisoners (Nikiforova
2010).45 In my example, the latter is presumably implied. With this in mind, the ST reader gets
a peculiar image: an old woman, wearing a dirty prisoner uniform and less-than-fancy footwear
— valenki — is comparing prisoners’ eating of necessity outdoors with cafe terraces in Venice.
What is more, she refers to specific cafes, which suggests that she perhaps has been there herself.
In the TTs, the image is slightly less striking, as the woman is wearing a decent peacoat and
could be taken for a camp employee.
When examining translation solutions for clothing realia, one can frequently see words
with very concrete meaning get deprived of their specific semantic features and replaced by
more generic words in the TT, thus losing their national/historic color: e.g. both камзол and
гимнастёрка become tunic in English translations, while тужурка and кафтан turn into
timeless jakke (jacket) in Norwegian TTs. Sometimes this is motivated by the context — some
sort of specification is already given in the original and retained in the TT, becoming the feature
in focus of a given clothing item:
RU ST: Недалеко же мы с вами п-продвинулись, — сказал Фандорин, распрямляясь и
отряхивая перепачканный кучерский кафтан. (BA)
NO TT: “Vi har ikke b-beveget oss særlig langt,” sa Fandorin, rettet seg opp og børstet av den skitne
kuskejakken.
EN TT: “We haven’t really travelled very far,” said Fandorin, straightening up and dusting off his soiled
coachman’s coat.
Here the protagonist, detective Fandorin, is dressed up as a coachman, and this is what is
perceived as most important by the translators. Thus, the specification кучерский is preserved
in the TTs while кафтан is rendered with a generic word — jakke and coat.
45 https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/10-13-organizatsiya-i-pravovoe-regulirovanie-veschevogo-dovolstviya-arestantov-vo-vtoroy-polovine-hih-nachale-hh-veka
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Occasionally items of clothing are not merely a way of describing a character but used
as metonyms to represent characters. One such example is from Akunin’s Koronatsiia:
RU ST: Эраст Петрович вынул полицейский свисток и дунул — от резкого звука толпа
шарахнулась в стороны, и несколько шагов мы преодолели с относительной легкостью, но затем
чуйки, тужурки и рубахи навыпуск снова сомкнулись. (BA)
NO TT: Erast Petrovitsj tok opp politifløyten og blåste den skarpe lyden fikk flokken til å fare til side, og
vi kom forholdsvis lett noen skritt videre, men så ble det fullstendig tett med frakker og jakker og
skjorter igjen.
EN TT: Erast Petrovich took out his police whistle and blew it. The crowd reeled back and parted at the
harsh sound, and we advanced a few more steps with relative ease, but then coarse caftans, pea jackets
and peasant shirts closed back together again.
In the excerpt above, the protagonists are trying to push their way through a crowd which is
gathering at Khodynka Field for festivities following the coronation of Nicholas II. The
majority of the crowd consists of low-class people — peasants, workers, etc. Тужурки were
often worn by low-class city folk as daily garments, while untucked shirts (in my study not
classified as realia) were typical for peasants. The Norwegian translation renders the utterance
about clothing items in a neutral manner: frakker, jakker og skjorter (coats, jackets and shirts)
do not point to any specific social class. The English translator, on the other hand, makes an
attempt to convey the social associations present in the original: both coarse caftans and
peasant shirts metonymically represent people of lower social orders.
The example below may illustrate how a piece of clothing may be treated with the same
translation procedure, but in rather different ways. The protagonist describes an old fellow
passenger he frequently meets in a trolleybus on his way to work:
RU TT: (...) одежда на нем тоже какая-то старомодная, что-то вроде косоворотки, поверх которой
надет пиджак, — все поношенное, но чистое и аккуратное (…). (LT)
NO TT: (...) klærne hans er også noe gammeldagse, en skjorte med rett krage med sideknepning, over
denne har han en dressjakke — alt slitt, men rent og pertentlig (…).
EN TT: (...) and his clothes are also out-of-date, a waistcoat over what looks like a traditional Russian
shirt — everything well-worn, but clean and neat (…).
As has been briefly discussed on p. 122, both translators use Explicitation by Extended
Paraphrase to render the realia косоворотка. However, whereas the Norwegian TT accentuates
formal features of the item in question (a shirt with a straight sideways collar), the English TT
highlights the historical and national aspects of the realia word. Cases when a paraphrase
explicates “Russian” to describe an ST realia are very rare in my dataset (another example:
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юфть → Russian leather), and these deserve a closer look. The first semantic feature of
косоворотка made explicit by the English translator — traditional — is paralleled by the
narrator’s own description of the man’s clothes as old-fashioned. In other words, there is a clear
gap between the narrator’s time and the time when such shirts were common. In contrast, the
second semantic feature explicated — Russian — can be said to create a sort of cultural distance
between the narrator and the old man, a distance that is obviously not present in the original
text. All of a sudden, the narrator begins to sound like a foreign tourist observing a local man.
This gap makes the translation more “visible” because it brings to light the cultural separation
existing between the translator and the TT readers on the one hand and the ST author, narrator
and the ST readers on the other.
Like most thematic categories, the category of clothing realia includes a large number
of archaic lexical items. These words are often not accessible even for native speakers of
Russian, but in a literary text they perform an important function of creating a realistic
background to historical novels or scenes. It can be said that the authors of the original historical
novels have to be much more careful when incorporating vocabulary of the right epoch into the
book than the translators of historical prose. Indeed, the ST readers might not know exactly
what чуйка looked like, but they instantly recognize that, in a historical novel, this word is more
appropriate than the contemporary пиджак. It is different in a translation: when Russian
authors use such archaic clothing terms as тужурка, камзол, кафтан, картуз, чуйки,
сюртук, тальма, their translators may be less rigorous handling this terminology, simply
because the majority of the TT readers do not know what kind of clothing was worn in Russia
in the past. Thus, камзол becomes, depending on the context, vest (vest), klær (clothes), frakk
(coat), livfrakk (waistcoat) in Norwegian and tunic in English; чуйка becomes lerretsjakke
(canvas jacket) in Norwegian and long cloth jacket in English. When paraphrasing realia of
clothes, translators might focus on function or form/material, depending on what they consider
more relevant in a specific context. Table 10 shows some examples:
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Table 10. Explicitation of Russian clothing realia in Norwegian and English TTs
Russian Realia Norwegian and English Renditions Focus of Explicitation
китель (LUS) uniformsjakke i vadmel (uniform jacket
made of wadmal)
focus on function and material
military jacket focus on function
тужурка (MS) uniformsjakke (uniform jacket) focus on function
double-breasted jacket focus on form
чуйка (LT) lerretsjakke (canvas jacket) focus on material
long cloth jacket focus on material and form
As it is rare for Russian clothing realia to be fixed expressions rather than single words,
Loan Translation is a procedure hardly ever employed by the translators in my study. Below
are two illustrations both interesting for various reasons:
RU ST: И я сказал им: “Я — СОЧ. Народ мой, в синих трусах и кирзовых сапогах, играет в футбол
сдутым мячом.” (MS)
NO TT: Jeg svarte: “Jeg er desertør. Mitt folk går kledd i blå truser og lerretsstøvler og sparker fotball
med en punktert ball.”
EN TT: And I told them, “I’m AWOL. My nation is wearing navy boxers and kersey boots and playing
soccer with a deflated ball.”
The Norwegian rendering may be classified as Explicitation by Short Paraphrase, as кирза is
attempted to be made explicit by lerret (canvas). The English solution kersey boots is an
interesting case because kersey is, in fact, the word from which the Russian кирза originated.
However, over time it changed its meaning and became a truly Russian realia. In English, it is
a kind of coarse woollen cloth with a nap on the back. Russian кирза, however, is a sort of
cheap artificial leather based on multi-layer fabric impregnated with some substances to make
it waterproof. Boots made of this material were mass produced in the USSR (and are still
produced in Russia) and used mainly in military uniform. The character in Venerin volos
mentions кирзовые сапоги as the most characteristic feature of Russian soldiers as well as the
only footwear available to them, even in warm weather. This strong association of кирзовые
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сапоги with the army is lost in both Norwegian and English translations, and the English
rendering can be viewed as a sort of false calque.
Another case of Loan Translation concerns a Soviet realia — пионерский галстук:
RU ST: Впереди нас была группа польских школьников в форме бойскаутов, с шейными платками
вроде пионерских галстуков — белое с красным. (MS)
NO TT: Foran oss i køen stod en gruppe polske skolebarn i speideruniformer, med halstørklær som lignet
pionerskjerf — de var hvite med noe rødt på.
EN TT: In front of us was a group of Polish schoolchildren wearing Boy Scout uniforms, with
neckerchiefs like Pioneer ties, white and red.
This is an example of a calque unlikely to be accessible for the TT readers without additional
cultural information. Those who are familiar with Soviet history may have no difficulty
understanding the reference, however, the average Norwegian or English/American reader
might find the realia confusing, particularly because the words pioner and Pioneer have a
different primary meaning in the languages in question.
A comparison of the descriptive statistics for the Norwegian and English data yields the
following results:
Table 11. Rendering of the Russian clothing realia in the English and Norwegian TTs
Norwegian English
Median = 4
Mode = 4
Total = 86
Median = 3
Mode = 4
Total = 84
Table 11 demonstrates very similar results for both data subsets: there is a small difference in
the medians, but the Mann–Whitney U test reveals that the difference between the two samples
is insignificant. The modes are identical and equal to 4. This implies that, for my dataset, the
most common translation procedure for rendering clothing realia is Explicitation by Short
Paraphrase, according to my model. The second most frequently used procedure in the
Norwegian TTs is Explicitation by Hypernym, while for the English TTs, the second and third
most frequent procedures have similar number of occurrences ― Explicitation by Hypernym
and Functional Substitution. This explains the difference in medians. All the foreignizing
translation procedures (Retention, with or without specification, and Loan Translation, with or
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without specification) are extremely rare for both data subsets: 5 out of 88 items for Norwegian
and 6 out of 86 items for English.
6.2.3 Realia denoting housing
This category covers realia referring to different types of housing and parts of a dwelling (e.g.
коммуналка, сени, дача, девичья, бытовка, терем, красный уголок, горница) as well as
parts of human settlements (e.g. околица, торцы, погост).
Коммуналка was a common living arrangement in the Soviet Union. As a response to
a housing crisis, many larger apartments were divided into smaller sections — one or two
rooms — and distributed between several families. The residents of such an apartment had to
share a bathroom, a kitchen and a hallway. We find this realia in Medeia i ee deti:
RU ST: Именно эти люди, втиснутые теперь в трухлявые коммуналки, указывали на огромное,
выше всех здешних церквей вознесшееся здание, архитектурный бред не без игривости, со
шпилем, арками, колоннадами над разновысотными ярусами, и говорили: “Нехорошее место…”
(LUM)
NO TT: Det var nettopp disse menneskene som nå holdt til her i sine overbefolkede, morkne
fellesleiligheter, som pleide å peke på den enorme bygningen som raget over alle de små kirkene i strøket,
på det litt lekne arkitektoniske vanviddet med spir, buer og søylerekker over de forskjellige etasjene i
ulike høyder, og si: “Det bringer uhell, det stedet der…”
EN TT: It was their descendants who inhabited the tenements built here at the turn of the century, and
these were the people, crammed now into moldering communal flats, who pointed to the vast building
which rose up higher than any of the neighborhood churches, a flight of architectural insanity not without
irony, with a spire, arches, colonnades above tiers of diverse heights, and said, “That’s an unholy place.”
In the excerpt above, коммуналки residents are opposed to the Moscow elite living in one of
the Stalinist skyscrapers — the famous Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Building. With awe and
trepidation, they look at the towering building and describe it as нехорошее место. The
Norwegian solution fellesleiligheter (shared apartments) does not convey all the connotations
of Soviet коммуналка, but the context otherwise suggests very limited housing space where
people reside not by choice: втиснутые referring to people is compensated by overbefolkede
(overcrowded) referring to apartments. The English solution is more foreignizing and can be
classified as Loan Translation, although the expression is calquing not the short informal word
коммуналка, but the formal term for this type of housing — коммунальная квартира. This
solution, like the Norwegian one, might not give a very good idea of what коммуналка was
like, the TT readers may infer it from the broader context.
164
A number of terms for traditional housing are found in my data: изба, терем, сакля,
мазаный домик, мыза. The Russian peasant house изба is rendered in the following way:
RU ST: Явился он к ней в бревенчатую поповскую избу при крестах, в парадном мундире. (BA)
NO TT: Han oppsøkte henne i prestens lille tømmerstue, han var iført paradeuniform og utmerkelser.
EN TT: He presented himself at the priest’s log-built village but in his dress uniform, wearing his medals.
The Norwegian rendering stue (in the sense of “simple little house”) is premodified by lille
emphasizing the small size of the hut. The shift may be identified as Explicitation by Short
Paraphrase. The English translation is somewhat controversial: it is not easy to say whether
изба → village is a mistranslation or a very loose intentional rendering. In the latter case, it
could be regarded as Contextual Translation.
A clearer case of mistranslation is found in the Norwegian solution below:
RU ST: (...) зимой Семья обитает в своем петербуржском дворце, летом на вилле в Царском,
осенью на Мисхорской мызе. (BA)
NO TT: (...) om vinteren bor vi i slottet i St. Petersburg, om sommeren i villaen i Tsarskoje Selo, om
høsten på Miskhor-neset på Krim.
EN TT: (...) during the winter the Family lives in its St Petersburg palace, during the summer in its villa
at Tsarskoe Selo, during the autumn at the Miskhor Grange.
Мыза is a fairly obscure rarely used word referring to a country estate with farm buildings,
typically in the Baltic region. The word was also part of the Petersburg dialect and could refer
to any country house, according to Dal (Dal 1989). In the utterance above, the reference is made
to some country estate in Crimean Miskhor, where the royal family lives in autumn. It is
rendered with a functional analogue — grange — in English. The Norwegian solution, however,
may be a mistranslation: мыза must have been confused with a similar-sounding Russian word
— мыс (as nes means cape).
Сакля refrs to a hut made of stone or adobe typical for the Caucasus region (Kuznetsov
2014). In the TTs, the word’s meaning is made explicit in different ways:
RU ST: Кухня была сложена из дикого камня, на манер сакли, одна стена упиралась в подрытый
склон холма, а низенькие, неправильной формы окна были пробиты с боков. (LUM)
NO TT: Kjøkkenet var murt i naturstein, som en liten fjellbolig med flatt tak, den ene veggen hvilte i
en renne som var gravd ut i haugen bak huset, og det var slått ut lave, uregelmessige vinduer i sideveggene.
EN TT: The kitchen was constructed of natural stone after the manner of a clay saklya. One wall was
built into the hill where the slope had been dug out, and low, irregularly shaped windows had been made
in the side walls.
165
The English translation shift is Retention with Intratextual Specification, where the
constitutive material of the hut is made explicit. The retained name of the Caucasian hut has
an exoticizing effect, while a more detailed specification was likely considered unnecessary
by the translator, as the kitchen building is given a thorough description right after the
comparison with сакля. The Norwegian translator, on the other hand, opts for a more
domesticating solution: without retaining the original term, she uses Explicitation by Extended
Paraphrase, with several features of the hut explicated — liten fjellbolig med flatt tak (small
mountain house with a flat roof). Another example of realia being explicated differently is
терема (at a fairground) rendered as pavilions in English and as små tårnaktige paviljonger
(small tower-like pavilions) in Norwegian.
An interesting housing realia used in a figurative sense is found in Ulitskaia’s Sonechka:
RU ST: В запроходную комнату Соня велела поставить Танину тахту и Ясину кровать и сказала:
– Вот будет девичья. (LUS)
NO TT: Sonja gav beskjed om at Tanjas divan og sengen til Jasia skulle plasseres på det innerste rommet
og sa:
– Så, dette får bli jomfruburet.
EN TT: Sonechka decided Tanya’s divan and Jasia’s bed should go in the room at the end of the corridor,
and named it the girls’ room.
Девичья is a historical term referring to a room for female servants in a landlord’s house
(Kuznetsov 2014). In the example above, it is used ironically: Sonechka arranges a room for
her daughter and her daughter’s friend in a new house and calls it девичья drawing attention to
the fact that it is a room for girls. The Norwegian translator attempts to convey this irony: she
uses a Functional Substitute — jomfrubur. This obsolete term has a slightly different reference:
it denotes a room for unmarried women.46 However, like the ST term, it can also be used
ironically to refer to a girls’ room. The English translator not only removes the direct speech,
but also takes away the ironic element of Sonechka’s comment, and the room becomes a plain
and simple girls’ room.
In the selected novels, the most frequent realia related to housing is дача/дачный — it
occurs 53 times in four of the six novels. In addition to that, дачник/дачница occurs 4 times.
As I have selected only 3 random occurrences from each novel to include in my data, I cannot
account for all the translation solutions for these words. My data show, however, that дача is
more frequently rendered with Retention proper in the English translations. The Norwegian
46 https://www.naob.no/ordbok/jomfrubur
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TTs do feature the retained term datsja, but other solutions are also found: landsted, sanatorium,
hytta. In one Norwegian translation, datsja is given a detailed explanation in a footnote (see
pp. 47, 111), while in the English TTs it is never explained. Below is one example where дача
is not rendered with Retention:
RU ST: (...) знакомые ему окрестности Бадена с домами и дачами медленно плыли за окном. (LT)
NO TT: (...) den velkjente omegnen til Baden-Baden med hus og landsteder fløt forbi utenfor vinduet.
EN TT: The familiar environs of Baden-Baden with their houses and country cottages were slowly
passing by the window.
As mentioned above, unlike Norwegian TTs with greater variety in translation solutions for
дача, English TTs almost invariably render дача as dacha in my dataset. It is remarkable, then,
that for this particular occurrence the solution is different. This probably has to do with the fact
that in the scene cited above, Dostoevsky, the novel’s protagonist, is traveling in Germany, and
the distinctly Russian word dacha would have sounded out-of-place in a description of Baden-
Baden’s suburbs.
As дача can refer to any country house — from a tiny cabin to a large comfortable villa,
a translator might change the previously chosen translation solution to avoid confusing the
readers:
RU ST: (...) потому что летнее время, когда жена с дочкой уезжали на академическую дачу Олиной
подруги, он обычно проводил в Расторгуеве, а не в хамовнической квартире жены. (LUM)
NO TT: (...) for om sommeren, når kona og datteren reiste til et sanatorium som tilhørte akademiet, og
som en veninne av Olga hadde adgang til, holdt han vanligvis til i Rastorgujevo og ikke i konas leilighet
i Khamovniki.
EN TT: (...) because during the summer, when his wife and daughter went to stay at the university-owned
dacha of Olga’s friend, he usually stayed in Rastorguevo rather than his wife’s apartment in Khamovniki.
Дача mentioned in the above utterance belongs to an institution and is probably more than just
a single small house. This is the likely reason why the Norwegian translator chooses Functional
Substitution — sanatorium, which evokes associations with a health resort capable of housing
many people rather than a country cabin. The English TT, however, sticks to Retention.
Another example shows the opposite situation — the Norwegian translator retains the
Russian realia, while the English translator opts for domestication:
RU ST: Над рекой замерли величавые облака, а тут же с капустного поля дачники тащат кочаны
мешками, с молоком матери впитав: не пойман — не вор. (MS)
167
NO TT: Det ligger noen majestetiske skyer og ruger over elva, og akkurat her er det noen datsjaboere
som er i ferd med å bære kålhoder i sekker rett fra åkeren, de har fått det inn med morsmelken: Du er ikke
tyv, hvis ingen fakker deg.
EN TT: Majestic clouds had come to a halt above the river, where summer people were dragging sacks
of cabbages from the field, having taken in with their mother’s milk the saying: You’re only a thief if you
get caught.
As previously mentioned, in Norwegian poorly assimilated loanwords are not commonly used
in compounds, according to my observations. One of the examples discussed was кулебяка,
rendered in English as meat kulebyaka and in Norwegian as fiskepirog (fish pirog) rather than
fiskekulebjaka or kjøttkulebjaka. The fact that the solution above involves this sort of
compound — datsjaboere (dacha residents) may be an indication that the word datsja is
becoming well-assimilated in Norwegian or simply that the word is encountered in the given
novel frequently enough to become recognizable even in derivatives (apart from datsjaboere,
datsja occurs 8 times in the translation of Venerin volos). The English rendering summer people
has no link to any sort of housing but instead explicates the season when people typically
become дачники. It can be classified as Contextual Substitution.
A comparative statistical analysis of the Norwegian and English translation solutions
for housing realia yields the following results for my data set:
Table 12. Rendering of the Russian housing realia in the English and Norwegian TTs
Norwegian English
Median = 3
Mode = 3
Total = 55
Median = 4
Mode = 3
Total = 55
Table 12 demonstrates similar results for the two data subsets: the medians are close, and the
modes are the same, while the Mann–Whitney U test confirms that there is no significant
difference between the two groups. The median 4 corresponds to the Explicitation by Short
Paraphrase, and the mode 3 — to Explicitation by Hypernym in my model. A further analysis
of the translation procedures distribution shows, among other things, that Retention proper is
more frequently used in the English TTs, while Explicitation by Extended Paraphrase and
Functional Substitution are more typical of the Norwegian TTs.
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6.2.4 Realia denoting household items
This group covers realia referring to household items (furniture, tableware, other utensils): e.g.
самовар, подстаканник, полати, пасочница, коптилка, etc.
One example where an object’s properties are explicated in different manners in the two
TTs is the translation of подстаканник:
RU ST: Потом раздалось мерное, частое постукивание — так стакан звякает в подстаканнике,
когда скорый поезд мчится на всех парах. (BA)
NO TT: Deretter hørte jeg en regelmessig, rask klakking, som teglasset i glassholderen når ekspresstoget
går for full damp.
EN TT: Then I heard a rapid regular knocking, like the rattling of a tea glass in its metal holder on a
train as it hurtles along at top speed.
Подстаканник, a glass-holder usually made of metal (more rarely of silver), is still frequently
used in trains when tea is being served. The translation solutions above are interesting in two
respects. First, подстаканник is mentioned in connection with a glass, but the fact that this
glass is likely to contain tea is merely implied in the original. Yet, in both TTs this detail is
made explicit — teglasset and tea glass. Second, the way the main function of подстаканник
is expressed in the translations is not the same: while the Norwegian TT explicates the glass
through a compound word (glassholder), the English TT involves the pronoun its referring to
the glass. In addition to that, the English solution makes the typical material of the item explicit:
metal. A similar example is the Explicitation of пасочница: Norwegian påskekakeform (Easter
cake tin) paraphrases the name of the traditional cake and the container, whereas the English
solution its tin anaphorically refers to the cake.
Another example demonstrates how the feature made explicit in a translation might be
(at least partially) motivated by the context:
RU ST: Но вместо Самуила появлялась из полутьмы Ниночка, в аромате зверобоя и тающего меда,
с граненым стаканом в худых, плоских руках (…). (LUM)
NO TT: Men istedenfor Samuil var det Ninotsjka som dukket opp av halvmørket, med en duft av perikum
og smeltende honning, med et grovt glass i de tynne, flate hendene sine (…).
EN TT: Instead of Samuel, however, it was Nina who emerged from the semidarkness, enveloped in the
fragrance of St.-John’s-wort and dissolving honey, with a thick glass tumbler in her thin, flat hands (...).
Гранёный стакан, a cheap faceted drinking glass, which was extremely popular in the Soviet
Union, could have been rendered in different ways. For instance, the Russian–Norwegian
Dictionary (Berkov 2011) offers the translation kjøkkenglass (kitchen glass) and the Russian–
169
English Oxford Dictionary provides the counterpart cut-glass. However, both translators
choose to emphasize the rough look of this item: Norwegian grovt glass (rough glass) and
English thick glass tumbler are intended to provide a contrast to the thin hands of the character.
Sometimes features such as material or function are not made explicit, and it is the
location of an object that is brought into focus:
RU ST: (...) и она по-прежнему ела свои припасы по ночам, в темноте и одиночестве, а сестра,
наблюдавшая с полатей ее ночные пиры, сильно ее жалела за жадность, но не обижалась. (LUM)
NO TT: (...) og hun fortsatte å spise av forrådet sitt om natten, i mørke og ensomhet, mens søsteren lå
over på ovnen og fulgte med i de nattlige festmåltidene hennes, syntes synd på henne fordi hun var så
grådig, men ble likevel ikke fornærmet.
EN TT: (...) and she would revert to guzzling her supplies at night, in the dark and alone; and her sister,
observing the midnight feasts from her place above the stove, only felt great pity for her greed and
forgave her.
Полати refers to a large overhead shelf, a sort of bunk bed, arranged under the ceiling between
the stove and the wall; it is typically found in peasants’ huts. In the given context, it seems
important to pinpoint that the character is located in a place from which she can freely observe
the room while remaining unseen. Her location is explicated in the TTs and is described as over
på ovnen (up on the stove) in Norwegian and her place above the stove in English. This
description may sound weird, though, to readers from a culture where it is uncommon to arrange
a bed on the stove or on a shelf extending from the stove.
The two household realia which have Retention as their TT solution are самовар and
кунган. Consider the following sentence:
RU ST: Медный кунган венчал пирамиду. (LUM)
NO TT: En kobberkanne tronet på toppen av pyramiden.
EN TT: A copper kungan pitcher crowned the pyramid.
Кунган (or кумган) refers to a metal or ceramic vessel in the form of a tall narrow-necked
pitcher with a spout, handle and lid (widely used by the Turkic peoples and the Caucasian
mountaineers) (Efremova 2000). The excerpt, in which the sentence above occurs, describes
Tatar utensils used by the protagonist living in Crimea. Кунган, thus, sounds quite exotic to the
Russian readers. Perhaps in order to preserve this exotic touch of the object, the English
translator uses Retention in italics (signaling the foreignness of the word) followed by a short
Intratextual Specification pitcher. The Norwegian translator opts for a more domesticating
solution — Explicitation by Hypernym kanne (jug).
170
The word самовар is encountered in three of the six selected novels. All the tokens are
rendered with Retention proper, which suggests that this loanword is expected to be relatively
well-known to the TT audience. One example featuring самовар is particularly remarkable:
RU ST: – Мы сейчас велим самоварчик поставить! Валенки-то, валенки давайте вот сюда,
поближе к печке! (MS)
NO TT: – Nå skal vi straks få dem til å fyre opp samovaren! Filtstøvlene, ja, filtstøvlene kan du sette hit,
nærmere ovnen!
EN TT: – We’ll have the samovar put on right away! Bring your boots, your boots over here, closer to
the stove!
The scene takes place at a Swiss immigration office, where one of the protagonists, an
interpreter, is supposed to read a standard greeting to asylum seekers. Instead, he gives a long
affectionate speech, addressed to an unspecified refugee and gradually turning into a monolog.
In this speech, he is being very considerate and helpful (perhaps sarcastically), using
diminutives and informal words as if he was welcoming a guest. Both realia used in the
utterance above — самоварчик and валенки — signal, first of all, that the interpreter and the
applicants not only speak the same language, but also share the cultural background. In addition
to that, the realia emphasize the absurdity of this greeting: it is highly unlikely that самовар
can be found in the Swiss immigration office, and it is doubtful that the asylum seeker is actually
wearing traditional Russian shoes валенки. Although the diminutive form of самоварчик is not
compensated in any way in the translations, Retention of the word allows the TT reader to some
extent to sense the bitter irony of the interpreter’s speech. The realia валенки, however, is
rendered with a Short Paraphrase in Norwegian and a Hypernym in English and does not
contribute much to this conflict between the typical Russian objects and a Swiss location.
A comparative statistical analysis of the Norwegian and English translation solutions
for realia denoting household items yields the following results for my dataset:
Table 13. Rendering of the Russian household realia in the English and Norwegian TTs
Norwegian English
Median = 4
Mode = 4
Total = 19
Median = 4
Mode = 3
Total = 19
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Table 13 demonstrates similar results for the two data subsets: the medians are the same, while
the Mann–Whitney U test confirms that there is no significant difference between the two
samples. The mode 4 corresponds to the Explicitation by Short Paraphrase, and the mode 3 —
to Explicitation by Hypernym in my model. These are the most frequent translation shifts
rendering this group of realia in the selected translations.
6.2.5 Realia related to transportation
This class includes realia referring to means of transportation (тройка, двуколка, плацкарт,
пролетка, теплушки, столыпин), transport infrastructure (столбовая дорога) and drivers
(ванька, ямщик).
Traditional means of transportation are frequently encountered in Russian novels with
a historical setting. Below is an example involving both a vehicle and a driver:
RU ST: Жандармы велели мадемуазель оставаться в экипаже, а сами выкинули из пролетки
ваньку и пустились в погоню за каретой, что увозила Михаила Георгиевича. (BA)
NO TT: Gendarmene beordret Mademoiselle Déclic å bli i vognen, mens de selv hoppet ut og over til den
andre vognen, kastet ut kusken og satte etter kareten som kjørte av sted med Mikhail Georgievitsj.
EN TT: The gendarmes told Mademoiselle to stay in the carriage, threw the cabby off his own rig and
set off in pursuit of the carriage that had driven away with Mikhail Georgievich.
Пролётка — referring to a light open four-wheeled carriage (Efremova 2000), which in
Russian cities was often used as a cab — is rendered with the hypernym vogn (carriage) in
Norwegian and with the outdated word rig, referring to “a vehicle with one or more horses
harnessed to it”47, in English. English rig is a less common word compared to Norwegian vogn,
but arguably just as generic. When it comes to the reference to a driver, the Russian ST uses a
slang word common in 19th century Russia: ванька is “a cabby on a bad horse with a poor
harness (usually a peasant who came to the city to work)” (Glinkina 1998). The Norwegian
solution offers a generic rendering: kusk refers to anyone driving a horse-drawn carriage as
profession or sport48, and the English solution, while also being more generic than the ST item,
is closer to it stylistically: both ванька and cabby are informal words. All of the four solutions
used above can be classified as Explicitation by Hypernym, and in the case of kusk it is
47 https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=rig 48 https://www.naob.no/ordbok/kusk
172
combined with Stylistic Adaptation, since kusk is stylistically different from the Russian lexical
item.
In this group of realia, as in others, it is not unusual that a single translation solution
corresponds to a variety of ST lexical items: vogn, cited above, is used to render as diverse
realia as теплушка, арба, пролётка, бричка; cab refers to both пролётка and, metonymically,
to ванька. More specific solutions highlighting certain features of carriages also occur:
пролётка is also rendered as kalesjevogn (carriage with a folding top) and hestevogn (horse
carriage) in Norwegian, and as horse-cab and taxi-cab in English. It is interesting that on one
occasion the English TT renders пролётка as droshky:
RU ST: Сказала, что у меня жар, и ушла. Иосиф посадил меня на пролетку. (MS)
NO TT: Jeg sa at jeg trodde jeg hadde feber, og gikk. Iosif fulgte meg til en vogn.
EN TT: I said I had a fever and left. Iosif put me in a droshky.
While the Norwegian translator makes use of the generic vogn, the English one employs a word
borrowed from Russian, but it is not the retained original lexical item. Semantically дрожки is
indeed nearly the same as пролётка. In fact, the word пролётка is a short version of the
original expression пролётные дрожки. The only difference between them was in their use:
while дрожки referred to a certain type of a light open four-wheeled carriage, пролётка
referred to the same type of vehicle, but was meant for hire, i.e. used as a cab. In other words,
the English solution is a loanword which is slightly less specific than the original item. Since
the original form is not retained, however, we cannot classify this as Retention proper. Perhaps,
this could be identified as a separate translation procedure — Near Retention — covering cases
when an SL lexical item is replaced with a loanword from the SL with a slightly different
meaning. This loanword is normally more familiar to the TT audience than Retention proper
would have been and is meant to convey the historical and local color of the original realia.
However, such cases are so rare in my data (2 occurrences), that I chose not to assign these to
a separate category. I will classify this shift as Retention and give 12 points to it.
The two examples of Retention proper found in this group of realia are troika (used in
both TLs) and britzka (used in English):
RU ST: (...) а по столбовой дороге, ведущей в Петербург, в сгущающихся сумерках мела поземка,
и вот уже, звеня колокольчиками, катится санная тройка с ямщиком на облучке,
подстегивающим бодро бегущих лошадей (...). (LT)
173
NO TT: (...) men på hovedveien som førte til Petersburg, blåste det opp snøfokk i skumringen som falt
på, og der suser allerede sledetrojkaen avsted med klingende bjeller og kusk på setet og med sprekt
løpende hester festet på (...).
EN TT: (...) and along the highway leading to Petersburg, in the fading twilight, a blizzard would be
raging, and the troika would be dashing away, sleigh-bells ringing, with the driver in his seat urging on
the sprightly horses (...).
This utterance features three transport-related realia referring to a vehicle, a driver and
infrastructure. Столбовая дорога is a historical term referring to a major road with milestones
marking versts. It is translated with Functional Substitution: hovedvei and highway. Тройка,
being a relatively well-known Russian phenomenon, is rendered with Retention: trojka and
troika. Ямщик is also rendered similarly in both TTs — with Explicitation by Hypernym, but
the hypernyms have a different degree of generalization: kusk, a driver of a horse-drawn vehicle,
is more specific than the word driver. Both words, however, fail to convey other important
semantic features of the SL item: ямщик refers to a driver of a horse carriage that used to travel
on a regular route between two places (Gerhart 2012: 371).
Retention with Intratextual Specification is encountered once:
RU ST: (...) возвращались из Крыма на поезде и остановились на каком-то разъезде, а прямо
напротив — столыпин, в узеньком окошке решетка и чье-то полудетское лицо. (MS)
NO TT: Vi var på vei tilbake fra Krim med tog og hadde stanset på et krysningsspor, og tvers overfor oss
stod en «stolypinvogn», der i den smale vindusåpningen så jeg gitteret, og bak det skimtet jeg et ansikt,
nesten et barneansikt.
EN TT: We were returning from the Crimea by train and had stopped at some junction, and directly across
was a Stolypin car, and there were bars and someone’s almost childish face in the narrow window.
Столыпин is an informal short version of столыпинский вагон — a special wagon used for
transportation of prisoners and convicts. Both solutions include a specification following
Retention — vogn and car. In addition to that, the Norwegian compound is used with quotation
marks which make the lexical item stand out and signal its foreignness. Neither of the translators
attempts to explain the function of столыпин, but the context involves bars in the narrow
windows, which indicates imprisonment. This detail was probably considered sufficient to
reveal the meaning of the exotic lexical item.
It has been mentioned before that, in case of Explicitation, different features of the
original object/phenomenon are seen as most relevant in a given context by different translators.
Платцкарт is rendered as åpen vogn (open car) or reserved seat on one occasion and as
fellesvogn (common car) and second-class car on another. Aрба is translated with kjerre på
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høye hjul (cart on high wheels) in Norwegian and with oxcart in English, drawing attention of
the readers to the animal used for drawing the vehicle. Below is another example of different
semantic features explicated in the TTs:
RU ST: Пережившая все крымские смуты, помнившая тифозные бараки, голод и холод, Медея
никогда не участвовала в огромных переселениях, сопровождавших отечественную историю, и
только по близкой наслышке знала о теплушках, скотских вагонах и очередях за кипятком на
станциях. (LUM)
NO TT: Medea hadde opplevd alle urolighetene på Krim, hun husket tyfusbrakkene, sulten og kulden,
men hun hadde aldri vært med på de enorme folkeforflytningene som var en del av landets historie, og
hun hadde bare hørt fra folk hun kjente, om godsvognene med ovn i, om kuvognene og køene etter varmt
vann på stasjonene.
EN TT: Although she had lived through many unsettled times in the Crimea, and remembered the typhoid-
infected huts, the famine, and the cold, Medea had never been directly caught up in the huge migrations
which have accompanied Russia’s history, and knew only by hearsay about the goods vans, the cattle
trucks full of people, and the queues for boiling water at the stations.
Теплушка refers to a freight car with a stove, adapted to transport people and widely used in
the USSR during the Second World War. The Norwegian TT provides a somewhat more
detailed Explicitation specifying that godsvognene (freight cars) were heated with stoves.
Although the excerpt describes migration of people, it is obvious that the TT readers will
interpret “goods vans” and “cattle trucks” as means of transportation for people because, when
people migrate, they may take along their possessions including cattle. This is the probable
reason why the English translator considered it necessary to specify that the cattle trucks were
“full of people”, and this phrase might as well be linked to the goods vans. The Norwegian
translation remains closer to the original, but, if the TT readers do not know certain historical
facts, the excerpt may be interpreted in more than one way.
Table 14 summarizes the descriptive statistics for this group of realia:
Table 14. Rendering of the Russian transport realia in the English and Norwegian TT
Norwegian English
Median = 3
Mode = 3
Total = 40
Median = 3
Mode = 3
Total = 39
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As evident from Table 14, the medians and modes for the English and Norwegian subsets of
data are equal. The results suggest that in the selected TTs, the most typical translation
procedure for rendering transport-related realia is Explicitation by Hypernym. It may also be
argued that transport-related realia are typically not rendered with Extended Paraphrase or
Retention with Intratextual Detailed Specification. A possible reason for this is that, in the
selected novels, transportation means are never the center of attention or even a particularly
significant detail. To convey the essence of the ST realia, translators employ references to
similar transportation in the TC (through Functional Substitution, Explicitation by Hypernym
or, at best, Explicitation by a Short Paraphrase). All the types of Retention are rare, and
Retention proper is encountered only in the case of two lexical items — тройка and бричка.
In addition, something I refer to as Near Retention occurs once in an English TT: пролётка →
droshky.
6.2.6 Realia denoting weapons
This small group covers realia referring to weapons: e.g. калаш, шашка, свинчатка, нагайка,
etc. In the selected novels, these realia are frequently rendered with Explicitation by Hypernym:
нагайка → pisk (NO), whip (EN), свинчатка → kølle (NO), шашка → sabel (NO), sabre
(EN), sword (EN). Functional Substitution is also found: шашка → club (EN), булава → mace
(EN). The latter example is rather interesting:
RU ST: – К примеру, позавчера на балу, когда ты стоял у дверей такой важный, с раззолоченной
булавой и бакенбарды на обе стороны, все дамы смотрели только на тебя, а на кузена Ники никто
и не взглянул, хоть он и император. (BA)
NO TT: – På ballet her om dagen, for eksempel, da du sto ved døren og så så viktig ut, med gullnåler og
bakkenbarter på begge sider, kikket alle damene bare på deg, men på fetter Nicky var det ingen som så,
selv om han er tsar.
EN TT: – For instance, the day before yesterday at the ball, when you were standing by the door, looking
so grand with your gold-plated mace and sideburns jutting out on both sides, all the ladies had eyes for
no one but you, and no one even glanced at cousin Nicky, even though he is the emperor.
A member of the Russian royal family pays the majordomo a compliment and mentions, among
other things, an accessory in his uniform that, strictly speaking, has lost its initial association
with a weapon. Булава in this context refers to a long stick with a ball on the top — part of the
porter's uniform in aristocratic houses (Kuznetsov 2014). However, in English the
corresponding name of the original weapon is used: mace is “a heavy club with a spiked metal
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head”.49 With this image in mind, the majordomo looks intimidating rather than solemn. The
Norwegian solution may be regarded as a mistranslation: булава must have been confused with
булавка and thus resulted in the rendition nåler (needles, pins).
Below is an example of how a slang word referring to a type of weapon is rendered with
distinctly different procedures:
RU ST: А один раз я выстрелил из “мухи” и неудачно развернулся — струя выхлопа ударила
Серому прямо в ухо (…). (MS)
NO TT: En gang hendte det at jeg skulle skyte med en “flue” — en granatkaster — og så snudde jeg
meg litt klossete, og lufttrykket slo rett i øret på Ulven (…).
EN TT: Once I shot an RPG and swiveled wrong. A stream of exhaust hit Gray right in the ear.
Муха is a slang term for the Soviet hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher РПГ-18 (ручной
противотанковый гранатомет). The English TT uses Stylistic Adaptation — the official
name of the weapon, an acronym, is transliterated letter by letter. English RPG is also known
as standing for rocket-propelled grenade,50 but this is a backronym originating in Russian
РПГ.51 Regardless of whether the reader is familiar with the acronym or not, the context clearly
indicates the use of a weapon, which is perhaps considered sufficient by the translator. The
Norwegian translator, however, employs a more foreignizing solution: she first uses a semantic
calque — “flue” (fly) — with quotation marks transferred from the ST that point to the non-
standard use of this word, and then adds an Intratextual Specification — granatkaster (grenade
launcher). This conveys both the original slang term and its meaning.
Another interesting slang term used in the same novel is калаш. It occurs twice, and in
the Norwegian translations it is rendered with Stylistic Adaptation both times — kalasjnikov.
The translator in this case must have assumed that this form of the word is familiar to the TT
readers and does not require an explanation:
RU ST: Один из них отпихнул ее к стене, приставил ей калаш к голове и выстрелил. (MS)
NO TT: En av dem dyttet henne mot veggen, satte kalasjnikoven mot hodet hennes og trakk av.
EN TT: One of them shoved her up against the wall, put his AK to her head, and fired.
Both translation solutions for калаш have undergone Stylistic Adaptation: the Norwegian
translator uses the better-known full name of this rifle, while the English one chooses the
49 https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/mace 50 https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/rpg 51 https://science.howstuffworks.com/rpg.htm
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transliterated official name of the rifle (AK — автомат Калашникова). At the second
occurrence, however, the English TT has the Russian slang term retained — Kalash.
The small group of realia related to weapons comprise only 11 tokens and does not lend
itself to a quantitative comparative analysis. It can be noted, however, that the most frequent
translation procedure used to render this sort of realia in my dataset is Explicitation by
Hypernym.
6.2.7 Realia related to work
This class of realia covers words referring to work-related objects, professions and human
occupations: e.g. проводник, буфетчик, городовой, ударник, колхозница, завхоз, etc.
It is not typical for these realia to be rendered with Retention of any sort, with or without
specification. More common are translations shifts such as Loan Translation, Functional
Substitution and various types of Explicitation. Consider the following example:
RU ST: Это были самые скучные три года в ее жизни, и закончились они скандально: застал-таки
ее в неурочный час Алексей Кириллович с глухонемым красавцем истопником, обслуживающим
тимирязевские дачи. (LUM)
NO TT: Det ble de kjedeligste tre årene i hennes liv, og det hele sluttet med skandale: Aleksej Kirillovitsj
overrasket henne faktisk i en ubeleilig stund med den vakre døvstumme arbeideren som passet ovnene
på landstedene i Timirjazev.
EN TT: They were the three most boring years of her life, and they ended in scandal: Alexei Kirillovich
caught her in flagrante delicto with the handsome deaf-and-dumb boiler-maker who serviced the
Timiryazev dachas.
The profession of истопник (worker engaged in stoking furnaces or heating boilers) is treated
descriptively in the Norwegian TT — arbeideren som passet ovnene (the worker who tended
the furnaces). At the same time, English boilermaker refers to “one that makes or repairs
boilers”,52 which is arguably a different profession. This translation solution can be regarded as
Contextual Substitution.
In another novel, the same word is translated differently:
RU ST: Истопник варил им картошку, которую приносил Сонечкин отец, добывающий
дополнительное питание своим безотказным мастерством. (LUS)
52 https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=boilermaker
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NO TT: På fyrkjelen kokte de poteter som Sonetsjkas far skaffet dem, han som aldri sa nei til noe
mesteroppdrag og derfor tjente till ekstra mat.
EN TT: The boilerman boiled potatoes for them which Sonechka’s father brought, his unfailing
craftsmanship providing essential extra rations.
The English solution is more generic this time: boilerman does not specify whether this man
makes boilers or heats them. The Norwegian solution is a peculiar case of Omission: it
eliminates the human actor but preserves the object he tends — fyrkjelen (boiler). While in the
original it is истопник who boils potatoes for Sonechka and her husband, in the TT the
characters do it themselves: the pronoun de (they) refers to the couple.
Завхоз (заведующий хозяйством) whose responsibilities are not easy to define and
roughly correspond to those of a supply and maintenance manager receives markedly different
treatment in the two TTs:
RU ST: Народу было мало, как говорится в таких случаях, “все свои” да еще дежурный стукач,
завхоз по совместительству. (LUM)
NO TT: Det var lite folk til stede, som man sier i slike tilfelle, var det bare “våre egne” og så den angiveren
som hadde vakt, det var materialforvalterassistenten.
EN TT: There were not many people present; as people say of such occasions, just a few friends plus the
KGB informer on duty that day, who was simultaneously responsible for maintaining public order.
The Norwegian solution materialforvalterassistenten (equipment manager assistant) is
semantically close enough to the Russian lexical item, although more cumbersome. The English
TT, however, features an instance of Explicitation by Extended Paraphrase that is difficult to
evaluate. Here, curiously, the person is responsible for maintaining public order. It is not easy
to determine whether this is a mistranslation or an intended change of meaning. One cannot
ignore the fact that this character is also стукач in the given context (note the very specific
English translation — KGB informer), and perhaps the translator thought it appropriate to give
him the task of maintaining public order at a dissident poetry soiree.
In the example below, an obsolete realia referring to a traditional Russian occupation is
used in a simile:
RU ST: Учителем Бутонова вместо падшего Николая Васильевича стал немолодой циркач смутной
крови из цирковой династии, с внешностью коробейника, но с итальянским именем Антонио
Муцетони. По-простому его звали Антоном Ивановичем. (LUM)
NO TT: Den som skulle innta plassen som Butonovs lærer istedenfor den falne Nikolaj Vasiljevitsj, var
en eldre sirkusartist som visstnok hadde sine aner i et sirkusdynasti og så ut som en skreppekremmer,
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men bar det italiensk-klingende navn Antonio Muzzetoni. For enkelhets skyld ble han bare kalt Anton
Ivanovitsj.
EN TT: Butonov’s teacher, replacing the discredited Nikolai Vasilievich, was an aging circus artist of
indefinite nationality but from a circus dynasty, who looked like a Russian peddler but had the Italian
name of Antonio Muzzetoni, and was popularly known as Anton Ivanovich.
In this context, the Italian name of the character is contrasted with his distinctly Russian
appearance. To highlight this contrast, the narrator compares the Italian character with someone
engaged in the old Russian profession of коробейник and reveals his Russified name. The
English TT renders the ST word with the counterpart peddler and, most importantly, employs
the premodifier Russian in order to convey the opposition found in the ST. The Norwegian
translator simply uses Functional Substitution skreppekremmer (a sort of peddler carrying his
wares in a leather bag), which results in the contrast between the character’s name and
appearance becoming less prominent.
Another example of a simile where the appearance of the worker is most important is
found in Leto v Badene:
RU ST: (...) перед чернявым мужчиной, представлявшим собой странный гибрид ударника
производства и мужика от сохи, на коленях стоял юноша без рубашки, в одних джинсах и босой,
и тоже с лицом какого-то не то передовика, не то мужика (...). (LT)
NO TT: (...) foran en mørkhåret mann som forestilte en underlig hybrid mellom en
produksjonsarbeidshelt og en bonde av reneste herkomst, knelte en ungdom uten skjorte, i bare jeans
og barføtt, han også med ansiktet til enten det nå var en foregangsmann eller en bonde (...).
EN TT: (...) in front of a dark-haired man strangely embodying a mixture of industrial shockworker and
primitive muzhik, knelt a barefoot, bare-chested youth with identical features, dressed only in jeans (...).
The English solution industrial shockworker is a close calque of ударник производства and
will most likely evoke the intended communist connotations in the TT audience. However, the
other synonymic word used in the ST — передовик — is rendered with Contextual Substitution.
It is also remarkable that мужик is rendered in a foreignizing way — muzhik. The Norwegian
solution produksjonsarbeidshelt (production labor hero) is an incomplete calque: it does not
render the word ударник quite so precisely but is also capable of triggering the necessary
associations. The other solution — foregangsmann (pioneer) — can be viewed as a hypernym,
as its meaning is more generic than that of передовик.
It is interesting to look at solutions for милиционер. Typically, as this word is thought
of as equivalent to policeman, its translation is straightforward. However, in Russia, particularly
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since милиция was renamed полиция in 2011,53 the word becomes increasingly more outdated
and associated with the Soviet era. In Leto v Badene, where the story takes place in two different
epochs — in the late 19th century and in the late Soviet years — both terms полицейский and
милиционер are encountered in their respective epochs. In the Norwegian TT, they are not
opposed and are rendered as politimann in both cases. By contrast, the English TT retains the
opposition between these words and renders полицейский as policeman and милиционер
(2 occurrences) as militiaman:
RU ST: (...) и рядом с картиной тоже стоял милиционер и, деликатно подгоняя очередь (...). (LT)
NO TT: (...) og ved siden av bildet sto det også her en politimann som taktfullt skyndet på køen (...).
EN TT: (...) and beside the picture, another militiaman, urging the queue forward (...).
However, for some reason the adjective милицейский occurring once in the same novel is
translated as police in the English TT.
Names of professions are often rendered with domesticating approximation in my data:
the translators find a similar occupation in the TC which covers part of the responsibilities of
the original profession: проводник → togkonduktør (train conductor), станционный
смотритель → postmaster, казачок → servant, половой → servant, околоточный
(надзиратель) → officer. The closest one comes to the foreignizing solution of Retention is
колхозница rendered as kolkhoskvinne in the Norwegian TT.
A statistical comparison of the translation solutions for this group of realia is presented
in Table 15:
Table 15. Rendering of the Russian work-related realia in the English and Norwegian TTs
Norwegian English
Median = 3
Mode = 2
Total = 56
Median = 3
Mode = 2
Total = 54
Table 15 demonstrates identical results for the two subsets of data: the medians and means are
the same. Median 3 corresponds to Explicitation by Hypernym, and mode 2 (the most frequent
translation shift for work realia) corresponds to Functional Substitution.
53 The term полиция was also used before 1917.
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6.2.8 Realia denoting arts and crafts
Realia that refer to arts and crafts, including performing arts (music, song, dance, theatre, etc.)
and performers are represented by such SL words as балаган, петрушка, свирель, хоровод,
куплетист, балалаечник, лубок, etc. Let’s have a closer look at a few examples from the
selected novels:
RU ST: В каком-то романе я читал, что человек по мере прожитых лет постепенно создает
собственный автопортрет, нанося на гладкий холст своей доставшейся от рождения парсуны
узор из морщин, складок, вмятин и выпуклостей. (BA)
NO TT: Jeg hadde lest i en eller annen roman at mennesket etterhvert som det blir eldre, gradvis skaper
sitt eget selvportrett, ved at det påfører sitt fra fødselen av glatte lerret et mønster av rynker, folder,
forsenkninger og utbuktninger.
EN TT: I had read in some novel that as a man passes through life he gradually creates his own self-
portrait, applying a pattern of wrinkles, folds, hollows and protuberances to the smooth canvas of the
persona that he inherited at birth.
In the utterance above, the narrator uses the little-known term from the Russian art history —
парсуна (from Latin persona) — a type of secular portrait genre in which icon-painting
techniques were merged with the traditions of classic European portrait. This realia is likely to
be obscure even to the average Russian reader, and if retained and not given an explanation in
a translation, would be inaccessible to the TT reader. Perhaps for this reason the Norwegian
translator chooses to omit the realia without losing in coherence. The English translator, in
contrast, attempts to stay closer to the ST and uses a word with the same Latin origin as парсуна
— persona. However, in English this word refers to an abstract concept — it is “the aspect of
someone’s character that is presented to or perceived by others”,54 one’s public image, which
changes the meaning of the original metaphor quite significantly. This solution парусна →
persona is a good illustration of a translation procedure not easily classifiable. On the one hand,
an attempt seems to be made to stay close to the original form of the realia, which is regarded
as a foreignizing operation in my model. On the other hand, semantically the TT word is notably
different from парсуна, thus the shift cannot be classified as Retention and should rather be
viewed as Contextual Substitution — a shift that is on the opposite end of the continuum.
54 https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/persona
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Realia denoting arts and crafts in my data include two interesting adjectives that I would
like to discuss in more detail — петрушечий and лубочный. The first adjective is encountered
twice in Ulitskaia’s Sonechka:
RU ST: К тому же он был поэт и высоким петрушечьим голосом пел первые песни новой
подпольной культуры. (LUS)
NO TT: I tillegg var han poet og sang noen av undergrunnskulturens første sanger med sin lyse
dukketeaterstemme.
EN TT: He was, moreover, a poet and in a raucous fairground voice he delivered the first songs of the
new culture of dissidence.
Петрушка is a classic stock character in traditional Russian puppetry that resembles English
Punch, and both ultimately derive from Italian Pulcinella of Commedia dell’arte. Like Punch
and Pulcinella, he has a signature squawking voice created with the help of a special little device
which the actor inserts in his mouth. The narrator likens a young man’s performance manner
with Petrushka’s voice, and this comparison carries somewhat pejorative connotations — not
only the voice is high-pitched, but it is also unpleasant to listen to, almost grotesque. Both
translators left out the name of the Russian puppet character and refer to a performance place
instead as a way to characterize the young man’s voice: dukketeater (puppet theatre) and
fairground. A reference to puppetry in the Norwegian TT is presumably sufficient to convey
the grotesque quality of the voice, whereas the fairground voice may be interpreted as simply
loud, and the preceding adjective raucous presents it as harsh-sounding. Thus, the English
description of the voice, although communicating its disturbing quality, moves further away
from the original than the Norwegian one.
At the next occurrence, the word петрушечий is used again in the figurative meaning
and describes the same character:
RU ST: Алешка не чинясь расчехлил гитару и спел несколько печально-остроумных и смешных
песен, яростно кривляясь и растягивая петрушечий рот балаганного актера. (LUS)
NO TT: Aljosja tok gitaren ut av trekket uten unødvendige fakter, satte seg og sang noen sørgmodig-
vittige og morsomme sanger, mens han vrengte og vred på munnen som en gjøgler på et gateteater.
EN TT: Without ado Alyosha peeled the case from his guitar and sang a few songs, wittily knowing or
comic, while grimacing furiously and contorting his lips like a clown at the fairground.
Like in the previous example, in the above translation solutions, Russian Petrushka does not
show up, but the renditions are more specific this time — Петрушка becomes gjøgler in
Norwegian and clown in English. The more specific rendering is probably due to the subsequent
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mention of балаганный актер. The translation solutions merge петрушка and балаганный
актер in one phrase: en gjøgler på en gateteater (a buffoon at a street theater) and a clown at
the fairground. Interestingly, the reference to puppetry that is present in the ST, is lost in the
TTs. Балаган — another realia in this utterance — refers to Russian fairground theater and,
while it had human actors alongside puppet shows, Petrushka with his grotesque mouth alluded
to in the ST is a puppet.
The other adjective that I would like to discuss in more detail is лубочный encountered
in Shishkin’s novel where a character complains about the White Army not receiving necessary
equipment:
RU ST: При этом фронт не получает из тыла ничего, кроме лубочных осважных картинок с
изображением Кремля и каких-то витязей. (MS)
NO TT: Og det mens fronten var uten forsyninger fra innlandet, det eneste de fikk var noen enkle trykk
de hadde laget i OSVAG med bilde av Kreml og noen vikinger eller hva det var.
EN TT: At the same time, the front was receiving nothing from the rear but OGVAG woodcuts depicting
the Kremlin and various knights.
ОСВАГ, the White Army’s information agency published, among other things, propaganda
posters and leaflets. Here they are scornfully described as лубочные. Лубок refers to a
traditional Russian graphic art which originally involved woodcuts, but later also engravings
and etchings. Lubki prints were characterized by vivid colors, simple and clear imagery and
compositions in order to be easily understood by the common people, often illiterate. They were
used as entertainment and decorations in houses. In the example above, лубочный is used in a
figurative, derogatory meaning — propaganda leaflets are depicted as something primitive
aimed at uncritical consumers with undemanding taste. This does not necessarily mean that
they were made with traditional lubok techniques. The English TT, however, highlights the
technical aspect of lubok — the pictures are referred to as woodcuts, which suggests that the
translator has interpreted the adjective лубочный rather literally. The Norwegian TT, on the
other hand, contains a somewhat feeble attempt to convey the unsophisticated nature of
leaflets — they are described as enkle trykk (simple prints).
It is also remarkable that витязи are treated with Functional Substitution in both
translations — vikinger and knights. It is rather interesting to observe the effect of functional
analogues which are deeply rooted in the target culture and have a distinct “local flavor”
(perhaps, more so in the case of viking than knight). Such cultural adaptation may produce a
peculiar result: on the White Army’s propaganda leaflets we see vikings and Kremlin at the
background.
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The last lexical item that I would like to include in the discussion of realia describing
arts and crafts is балалаечник:
RU ST: Перед началом сеанса публику развлекали балалаечники, исполняли фокстроты. (MS)
NO TT: Der var det noen balalaika-musikanter som underholdt publikum før forestillingen med å spille
foxtrot.
EN TT: Before the show began the public was entertained by balalaikas playing foxtrots.
The example is interesting because, despite the rather straightforward renditions involving
Retention, it is not easy to classify these translation procedures. The Norwegian translation
solution may be identified as partial calque (see Section 5.3.2.5 for the discussion of this
procedure), since part of the original word is retained — balalaika — and the other part, the
actor suffix -ник, is given an approximate translation — musikant. The English rendition
(балалаечники → balalaikas) is similarly controversial. It does not quite fit the definition of
Retention, as Retention not only requires preserving the form of the ST lexical item, but also
does not normally involve a change of reference. Here, however, the reference to a performer
is replaced by a reference to a musical instrument. Balalaika is neither a hypernym, nor a
hyponym in relation to balalaika player. Rather, the semantic relationship between these two
lexical items is of metonymic nature. More specifically, balalaika may be viewed as a meronym
of балалаечник in the given context — i.e. a word which denotes part of балалаечник but is
used to refer to the whole. From this point of view, both ST and TT words refer to the same
object and balalaika may, with some reservations, be classified as Retention in the example
above.
The group of realia denoting arts and crafts is a small one — there are only 14 tokens
and 10 types in my data. Thus, I did not perform a statistical comparison for this thematic group.
However, the most frequent translation shift can be identified: for both English and Norwegian
TTs it is Explicitation by Hypernym.
6.2.9 Realia related to folklore and mythology
This small group of realia covers words and fixed expressions related to the source-culture
folklore and mythology: e.g. скатерть-самобранка, царевна-лягушка, сорока-белобока,
чудо-юдо, Дед Мороз, домовой, тридевятое царство, прибаутки. In the STs selected for
the present study, nearly all the realia from this group are used in a figurative sense — in
metaphors and similes. Below is one example of such use:
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RU ST: А Сонечка вытащила откуда-то большую коричневую сумку, достала из нее скатерть-
самобранку с салфетками, холодными котлетками и ледяной окрошкой из термоса. (LUS)
NO TT: Sonetsjka trakk frem en stor brun veske et eller annet steds fra, og opp av den fisket hun en
trylleduk som i eventyret, med servietter, kalde kjøttkaker og iskald sommersuppe i en termos.
EN TT: Sonechka produced a large brown holdall from somewhere, and drew out of it a magic tablecloth
which spread itself with napkins, rissoles, and ice-cold summer soup in a vacuum flask.
Скатерть-самобранка, a magic tablecloth that can unfold itself and feed its master any time,
features in quite a few Russian fairy tales. In the excerpt above, it is used metaphorically as a
way to characterize the protagonist Sonechka who has embraced her new role of a housewife
and can now conjure up a meal from thin air. The translators paraphrase the ST realia in slightly
different ways: both refer to it as a magic tablecloth (en trylleduk in Norwegian), but in addition
to that, the Norwegian TT highlights that the reference to this magic object is metaphorical —
som i eventyret (like in a fairy tale), while the English TT describes what the cloth can do — it
spreads itself.
In another interesting example, the narrator compares cabmen with the Russian
mythological creature Дед Мороз:
RU ST: Извозчики под снегом — как деды морозы. (MS)
NO TT: Drosjekuskene sitter nedsnedd som julenisser.
EN TT: The snow-blanketed coachmen are like Father Frosts.
As has been discussed in Section 5.3.2.12, the English translator chooses a calque to render the
realia, whereas the Norwegian one uses Functional Substitution55 rooted in the target culture
(julenisse is Norwegian Santa). Using the familiar image, the Norwegian TT promptly evokes
connotations similar to those attached to Дед Мороз. The more foreignizing English solution,
the calque56 Father Frost, leaves more to the reader’s imagination, but at the same time it is
transparent enough to be interpreted as an exotic folklore character. Besides, it is probably safe
to say that Father Frost seems more at home in the Russian setting than Santa Claus would have
been.
Another reference to a mythological creature found in my data is домовой — a Slavic
protective house spirit:
55 Other examples of Functional Substitution in this group of realia are: в тридевятом царстве → østenfor sol og vestenfor måne (NO), чудо-юдо → uhyre (NO), bogeyman (EN). 56 Other examples of Loan Translation in this group include: царевна-лягушка → froskeprinsesse (NO), princess frog (EN), царевна-лебедь → svanedronning (NO), swan queen (EN).
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RU ST: Где-то под полом живет домовой, невидимый жилец, сторож всех живущих. Видеть
домового нельзя, это не в силах человека, но можно его услышать и даже потрогать, вернее,
почувствовать его касание: он говорит, будто листьями шевелит, и гладит ночью спящих своею
мягкою лапой. (MS)
NO TT: Et eller annet sted under gulvet bor nissen, han bor her, men vi kan ikke se ham, og han passer
på alle som bor her. Det er umulig å få se nissen, det står ikke i menneskelig makt, men det går an å høre
ham og til og med ta på ham, eller rettere, kjenne at han tar på deg: Når han snakker, høres det ut som
rasling i blader, og om natten stryker han dem som sover, med sin myke labb.
EN TT: Somewhere under the floor lives the house spirit, our invisible lodger, guardian of all who live
here. You can’t see the house spirit — that is beyond man’s powers — but you can hear him and even
touch him — or rather, feel his touch. He talks like rustling leaves and strokes those sleeping at night with
his soft paw.
In this context, the folklore realia домовой is used in its literal sense: the excerpt describes the
worldview of a little girl who believes in all sorts of spirits. As in the previous example, the
Norwegian solution is more domesticating in this case: nisse comes from Nordic folklore and
has a certain similarity with Russian домовой. However, домовой was often pictured as
covered with hair or fur all over and otherwise having certain animal features, which can explain
the reference to his “soft paw”. This feature may seem a little puzzling in association with nisse,
typically conceived as a humanoid creature more akin to a gnome. The English solution house
spirit specifies that the spirit lives in the house and can be identified as Explicitation by a Short
Paraphrase.
Травка-муравка (aslo трава-мурава, травушка-муравушка) is well-known to
anyone familiar with the Russian folklore: this expression is frequently used not only in fairy
tales and songs, but also in verbal spells. In some of these spells, травка-муравка is an
addressee, some sort of spirit that can magically make something happen. In Shishkin’s Venerin
volos, in certain scenes травка-муравка seems to be this sort of addressee of a spell. However,
it becomes clear after a while, that it also represents God. On one occasion, the character asks
it to help her get pregnant until it finally responds:
RU ST: И вот я помолилась: Травка-муравка, дай мне снова ребеночка! Она мне в ответ: Но ведь
ты же старая! (...) Я: Ну и что? При чем тут это? У Сарры тоже все давно прекратилось, а ты же ей
дала! Сотвори чудо, что тебе стоит! Тогда травка-муравка сказала: Ладно, что с тобой делать,
будь по-твоему! (MS)
NO TT: Og jeg bad så tynt: Trylleurt, myke vekst, la meg få et nytt lite barn! Men trylleurten svarte:
Men du er jo så gammel! (...) Jeg: Ja, og hva så? Hva har det å si? Sara var også ferdig med alt det der for
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lenge siden, men likevel lot du henne få! Gjør et under, det koster deg ingenting! Da sa den myke,
krøllete trylleurten: Javel, når jeg ikke rår med deg, det skal bli som du ønsker!
EN TT: How I prayed: Green, green grass, give me another little baby! It replied: But you are old! (…) I:
So what? What does it have to do with this? Everything had ended for Sarah long before, too, but you
gave her one! Is that too much to ask? What do you care? Then the green, green grass said, All right,
you’re impossible. As you wish!
The original meaning of трава-мурава was young, juicy grass, but in the folklore it occurs as
a poetic repetitive figure of speech where the meaning of мурава is not relevant anymore. It is
similar to such set expressions as зимушка-зима, весна-красна сорока-белобока,
коровушка-буренышка, мышка-норушка, etc., frequent in the Russian folklore. Neither of
the translators makes an attempt to convey the rhymed form of the expression, but the English
one employs some sort of compensation: the repeated adjective and the alliteration of green,
green grass create a phonetically interesting phrase, reminiscent of the fairytale narrative,
which works well for this recurrent image. On the other hand, nothing in this solution suggests
that the grass is special, perhaps magic, and the TT reader has to infer it from the broader context.
The Norwegian solution den myke, krøllete trylleurten (encountered several times in this form
in the TT) is longer, it attributes three qualities to the grass — soft, curly and magic — and it
has an irregular rhythm. The only time when the rhythm is distinct in the rendering of this realia
is in the beginning of the spell cited above: trylleurt, myke vekst (magic herb, soft grass).
The symbolic meaning of травка-муравка in the novel is very complicated. At times,
it seems to represent simply grass, mentioned in passing, as in a fairy-tale narrative. In one
scene, at a neglected monastery visited by the protagonist, травка-муравка along with the old
trees, stones and the walls of the monastery is where some sort of divine spirit is retained, so
the character prays to everything around her, including травка-муравка. In the last scenes of
the novel, this image becomes increasingly more specific. It refers to a concrete species — the
plant Adiantum capillus veneris, or maiden hair, that grows all over Rome as a weed. At the
same time, it represents God — “curly god”, “god of life” — not associated with any particular
religion. Moreover, there are indications in the novel, that this plant which is growing “through
all your marble” and “which grew here before your Eternal City and will grow here after”
(Shishkin 2012: 500) symbolizes love that permeates everything. The fact that this image has
so many faces and ultimately gives the title to the novel, makes the translation of the realia
травка-муравка extremely challenging. The reference to trylleurt (magic grass) that makes
sense in a fairytale narrative and in a spell, becomes a little odd in the scene at the Russian
monastery where the character senses the divine in everything she sees and later in Rome when
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it evolves into a representation of God. In a monolog that is not possible to attribute to anyone
in particular, a reflection on the God’s appearance ends with:
RU ST: А скорее всего, и не то, и не другое, и не третье — а что-то очень простое, какая-нибудь
трава. Трава-мурава. Растет себе. (MS)
NO TT: Høyst sannsynlig er Gud verken det ene eller det andre eller det tredje, men noe helt uanselig, en
vekst av et eller annet slag. En myk vekst, en trylleurt. Som ganske enkelt bare vokser.
EN TT: But more than likely it’s neither one nor the other nor even a third. It’s something very simple,
some kind of grass. Green, green grass. Just growing.
In the ST, трава-мурава, although one may still view this as a reference to grass from the
Russian folklore, is not presented as magic. The narrator emphasizes that God may be hidden
in something very simple, mundane, where it is least expected — a weed plant. Trylleurt (magic
grass), by contrast, is something extraordinary.
A comparative statistical analysis for this group of realia is provided below:
Table 16. Rendering of the Russian realia related to folklore in the English and Norwegian TTs
Norwegian English
Median = 5
Mode = 2
Total = 17
Median = 4
Mode = 4
Total = 17
Table 16 shows a small difference in the medians, and the modes are also different. However,
the Mann–Whitney U test reveals that the difference between the compared data sets is not
significant. The mode 2 for the Norwegian TTs indicates that the most frequent translation
procedure used to treat this type of realia is Functional Substitution, and the mode 4 for the
English TTs corresponds to Explicitation by Short Paraphrase. Other frequent translation shifts
include Loan Translation for both English and Norwegian TTs and Explicitation by Extended
Paraphrase for the Norwegian TTs. Retention (with Intratextual Specification) is used once in
an English TT (сороки → magpies soroki) and is motivated by the need to explain a play on
words (see more in Section 6.2.11).
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6.2.10 Realia denoting customs, celebrations, games
This group covers realia referring to various customs, games, toys, celebrations and non-
religious holidays: e.g. винт, новогодняя ёлка, масленица, козёл, ванька-встанька, вербное
воскресенье, ноябрьские праздники, день танкиста.
Let us first consider some realia related to games. Преферанс is one of the best-known
card games in Russia, which was particularly popular in the 19th century. In some respects, it is
similar to whist and bridge. In my data, it occurs once:
RU ST: (...) его намек в споре с кем-то из панаевцев относился также к Некрасову и даже к
Белинскому, которые на литературных вечерах вдруг почему-то стали играть в преферанс –
эдакое тупоумное занятие (...). (LT)
NO TT: (...) hans hentydning i disputten med ham fra Panajev-klikken gjaldt også Nekrasov og til og med
Belinskij, som på litterære aftener plutselig ga seg til å spille preferans — en overmåte sløvsinnet
beskjeftigelse (...).
EN TT: (...) and the words he had uttered during his argument with one of Panayev’s supporters were
also meant to apply to Nekrasov and Belinsky, who for some reason at a literary soirée had both sat down
to play preference (such a dull pastime!).
The two solutions for преферанс look nearly identical yet are quite different. In the Norwegian
TT, we see Retention proper — preferans — which transliterates the Russian name of the game.
The English TT, on the other hand, uses the French word that the Russian realia originates from.
Since the spelling of the French and English words is the same, the name of the game does not
stand out as an exotic term in the English text and would probably be read in the English manner.
Thus, while both solutions can be regarded as Retention, only the Norwegian one is a Retention
visible to the TT reader — its unusual spelling signals that the word was transferred from the
original. On another occasion, the popular card game винт is rendered as whist in English and
Norwegian as the closest analogy to the Russian game. The idiom забивать козла referring to
a particular domino game, is translated with a phrase involving a hypernym — å spille domino
(NO), to play dominoes (EN).
An interesting example involving a card game is found in Akunin’s novel:
RU ST: Когда я заглянул в купе, Павел Георгиевич позвал:
– Садись, Афанасий. Сыграй с нами на “американку”. (BA)
NO TT: Da jeg tittet inn til dem, sa Pavel Georgievitsj: “Sett deg og ta et slag kort med oss, Afanasij.”
EN TT: When I glanced into the compartment, Pavel Georgievich called to me: ‘Sit down, Afanasii. Have
a game of American roulette with us.’
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The Norwegian TT indicates that the character is offered a card game (kort), while the English
translator, perhaps in an attempt to stay closer to the original, uses the phrase American roulette,
which suggests a casino game and may seem a little odd in a train setting. In this respect, the
Norwegian solution is closer to the implied meaning in the ST, as the characters most likely
play cards. However, американка does not denote any specific type of game. What it refers to
is a kind of bet, under which the loser is obliged to fulfil any desire of the other party — hence
the preposition на and not в in the phrase сыграть на американку.
The names of Soviet holidays which occur in the selected novels are rendered with Loan
Translation if the result is a transparent calque: день Красной Армии → Den røde hærs dag,
Red Army Day, день танкиста → Tanksførernes dag, Tankist Day. However, if a colloquial
name of the holiday is used (ноябрьские праздники, майские праздники), translators add a
specification in addition to Loan Translation:
RU ST: Осенью, к ноябрьским праздникам, Медея вышла на пенсию. (LUM)
NO TT: Denne høsten, da det nærmet seg revolusjonsmarkeringen i november, gikk Medea av med
pensjon.
EN TT: Medea retired from her job in the autumn, on the Revolution Day holiday in November.
Both TT solutions above specify that November holidays are dedicated to the celebration of the
Russian Revolution. A similar example is found in the same novel:
RU ST: Первый заезд обычно бывал кратким, несколько праздничных майских дней, кое-кто
дотягивал до девятого. (LUM)
NO TT: Det første innryket var vanligvis kortvarig, noen fridager i mai, en og annen av gjestene drøyde
gjerne til over Seiersdagen den 9.mai.
EN TT: The first group visit was usually brief: a few days around the First of May holiday, with one
or two people staying on until the ninth.
In the ST utterance, public holidays of Labor Day and Victory Day are implied, both of which
are public holidays in the USSR/Russia. Because the dates are so close, this gives people an
opportunity to take a short vacation. The two TTs explicate two different holidays. The
Norwegian translator adds specification to the date 9th of May — Seiersdagen (Victory Day),
without elaborating on the other May holiday, perhaps because the 1st of May is also a public
holiday in Norway. The English translator makes the First of May holiday explicit leaving the
ninth of May without further explanation.
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In Russia, the New Year celebrations surpass Christmas in importance, and all the
festivities associated in the West with Christmas are part of the Russian New Year. This may
pose a problem for a translator:
RU ST: Зачем-то помню, что за окном, во дворе, когда говорил по телефону, две девочки играли
в Новый год, воткнув полуосыпавшуюся елку с обрывками серебряной мишуры в кучу грязи
рядом с помойкой, и дарили друг другу подарки, протягивая в пустых руках что-то, никому, кроме
них, не видимое. (MS)
NO TT: Av en eller annen grunn husker jeg at da jeg snakket i telefonen, så var det to jentunger som
lekte nyttårsaften ute, de hadde plantet et avdrysset gammelt juletre i en søleklump ved siden av
søppelhaugen, det var ennå noen strimer av sølvglitter på det, og så gav de hverandre presanger, de leverte
noe til hverandre og tok imot, noe ingen andre enn de selv kunne se.
EN TT: For some reason I remember that outside, in the yard, when I was talking on the phone, two girls
were playing New Year’s, having stuck a half-shredded tree with silver tinsel into a pile of dirt next to
the garbage, and were giving each other presents, putting something no one but they could see into each
other’s empty hands.
The girls’ game described by the narrator has to do with Russian New Year’s traditions: having
a decorated tree and exchanging presents. Both translators stay close to the original when it
comes to rendering the holiday: girls are celebrating New Year, not Christmas. What is
interesting is how they render ёлка: the English translator leaves it unspecified (simply a tree),
while the Norwegian translator uses Functional Substitution — juletre (Christmas tree). The
TT readers may interpret this as an inconsistency or, otherwise, as something quite logical:
after all, New Year’s Eve in the West is often celebrated with the Christmas tree still standing
in the house. It is interesting, though, that in a different context in the same novel, the
Norwegian TT renders ёлка as nyttårstre (New Year’s tree).
On another occasion, the Norwegian translator, once again, chooses a more
domesticating way of rendering ёлка:
RU ST: (…) уже ползимы прошло, а морозов и снега все не было, и выброшенные новогодние
елки валялись во дворе на пожухлой траве (…). (MS)
NO TT: (...) halve vinteren var alt forbi, og det var ikke lenger verken frost eller snø, og juletrærne som
folk hadde kastet ut, lå utover de falmede gresstustene i gården (...).
EN TT: (...) half the winter had passed without any frosts or snow, and the discarded New Year’s trees
lay about the yard on the sere grass (…).
In the scene above, новогодние ёлки are mentioned in passing — merely as an interesting detail
to highlight the unusually warm weather. Thus, replacing the realia with juletrær (Christmas
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trees) does not create any inconsistencies noticeable to the TT readers, unless they are familiar
with the Russian traditions. Nevertheless, the English translator opts for a foreignizing calque
— New Year’s trees — making the translation more “visible”.
Масленица, a folk holiday celebrated during the last week before Great Lent, originates
in the Eastern Slavic pagan tradition. Apart from becoming dependent on the date of Easter in
the Christian era, it has little to do with the Orthodox Church and is conceived as the celebration
of spring. In the selected TTs, it occurs several times and is rendered with Functional
Substitution:
RU ST: На Масленицу мы с сестрами идем на гулянье, которое превращается в побоище —
разные концы Темерника устраивают друг с другом драку. (MS)
NO TT: Jeg og søstrene mine går til en folkefest på fastelavn, men den forvandles til et stort gateslag —
det er de forskjellige strøkene i Temernik som havner i slagsmål med hverandre.
EN TT: On Shrovetide my sisters and I go to a fête that turns into a slaughter when the different ends of
Temernik get into a brawl.
Norwegian fastelavn and English Shrovetide refer to the three days before Great Lent. While
sharing certain features with the Russian week-long holiday, celebrations taking place during
fastelavn and Shrovetide come nowhere close to Масленица celebrations, with its bonfires,
burning of a straw effigy of Maslenitsa, sledding, sleigh rides and snow ball fights. The most
characteristic food of Масленица is блины representing the sun. Pancakes in association with
Масленица are mentioned in Venerin volos when the protagonist describes her emigre life in
Paris: RU ST: И на каждом шагу блинные — Crêperie — не жизнь, а масленица! (MS)
NO TT: Det er pannekakerestauranter på hvert gatehjørne — Crêperie — her er det ikke hverdag, det er
fastelaven hver dag!
EN TT: Crêperies at every step — that’s the life!
The sentence is interesting in that масленица here can be interpreted in both a literal and a
figurative sense. On the one hand, when seeing crêperies, the protagonist gets quite literal
associations with the holiday Масленица. On the other hand, не жизнь, а масленица is a
phraseological expression meaning “having a fun life, living high off the hog”. The Norwegian
translator renders the literal sense of масленица but emphasizes the opposition between the
everyday life (hverdag) and масленица (fastelavn). The English translator, interestingly,
chooses to render the figurative sense of the expression — that’s the life! — eliminating any
reference to the folk holiday.
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The last example I would like to discuss concerns the little-known Russian custom of
величание — a folk ritual song celebrating someone (e.g. groom and bride). The scene
described below takes place in a “Russian” bar in Paris which the emigre couple leaves in
disappointment. Величание is most likely performed by the gypsies and intended to celebrate
the bar guests:
RU ST: Противно смотреть, как американцы веселятся: подпевают цыганам, приплясывают.
Пьяные пускаются вприсядку. И все без исключения после величания бьют посуду — им, верно,
кажется, что это и есть “русская душа”. (MS)
NO TT: Det var motbydelig å se hvordan amerikanerne moret seg: De sang med når sigøynerne opptrådte,
og forsøkte å danse som dem. Berusede mennesker som hev seg med og forsøkte å kruke. Og alle uten
unntak, alle knuste de glassene efter sigøynernes hyllingssang til gjestene — de innbiller seg visst at det
er det som er “den russiske sjel”.
EN TT: It’s disgusting to watch the Americans enjoying themselves, singing along with gypsies, dancing.
Drunks squat-dancing. And after their exaltation, without exception, they break a dish. They must think
that’s what the Russian soul is.
The difference in the translation shifts is evident. The Norwegian solution, Explicitation by
Extended Paraphrase, explains the situation to the TT reader quite well: sigøynernes
hyllingssang til gjestene (the gypsies’ cheering song for the guests) explicates who is singing
the song, what kind of song this is and who the addressee is. In contrast, the English solution is
rather ambiguous — it is not clear what exactly their exaltation refers to. This rendering may
be regarded as Contextual Substitution.
A summary of the descriptive statistics for this group of realia is presented in Table 17:
Table 17. Rendering of the Russian realia denoting customs in the English and Norwegian TTs
Norwegian English
Median = 4
Mode = 4
Total = 41
Median = 4
Mode = 8
Total = 41
The statistical comparison has yielded identical results for the medians. The mode 4 for the
Norwegian TTs means that the most frequent translation shift rendering customs realia is
Explicitation by Short Paraphrase. The mode 8 for the English TTs corresponds to Loan
Translation.
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6.2.11 Realia related to religion
Realia from this group denote religious practices and practitioners, rituals, places of worship,
sacred objects, etc.: благовест, митрополит, миропомазание, толстовец, капище, погост,
раскольник, старовер, паперть, кафизма, etc.
The Eastern Orthodox Church differs significantly from other Christian churches in its
customs, rituals, worship and certain aspects of theology. These differences may be reflected
or concealed in translation. Consider, for instance, раскол — splitting of the Russian Orthodox
Church into an official church and the Old Believers movement in the 17th century. There are
three synonymic words referring to Christians who maintained the religious practices as they
existed before the reforms of Patriarch Nikon in 1652–1666 — староверы, старообрядцы
and раскольники. All the three terms are encountered in the selected translations. The word
староверы is rendered with Loan Translation in English — Old Believers and with Loan
Translation with Extratextual Specification in Norwegian — gammeltroende (old believers)
coupled with an endnote (see more on pp. 119–120). Both calques can be characterized as
entrenched in the TLs, as the terms are included in the monolingual dictionaries. Let us see how
раскольники and старообрядцы are treated:
RU ST: Триста лет рыли, а то и б-больше: и монахи в годы смуты, и мятежные стрельцы, и
раскольники, прятавшие от патриарха Никона старинные книги и церковное серебро (…). (BA)
NO TT: De gravde i tre hundre år, om ikke mer: både munkene i den urolige tiden på 1600-tallet, og de
opprørske Streletsene, og Raskolnikerne, som gjemte gamle bøker og kirkesølv fra Patriark Nikon (…).
EN TT: They must have been digging it for three hundred years, if not longer: the monks during the Time
of Troubles and the rebel Streltsy, and the Old Believers hiding their ancient books and church silver
from the Patriarch Nikon (...).
The solutions in the above examples are different. While the Norwegian TT retains the original
realia, though in the capitalized form, the English TT uses a calque of the synonymic term
староверы. The latter choice is probably motivated by the fact that the calque is relatively
transparent and suggests some division in the religious community, while Raskolniki would
have required an explanatory comment. This example demonstrates yet another challenge in
the classification of translation shifts: it is not obvious how to qualify this solution if it is a
calque not of the ST item, but of its synonym. In my study, I regard this as a sort of paraphrase,
more precisely Explicitation by Short Paraphrase rather than calque. However, старообрядцы
rendered as gammeltroende and Old Believers can be viewed as an incomplete calque.
Another interesting calque found in this category is a solution for толстовец:
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RU ST: В свободное время он сидит в своем углу с книжкой в руках — про него говорят, что он
толстовец, не ест мясного и что, прочитав “Холстомера”, завещал свой скелет в анатомический
кабинет гимназии. (MS)
NO TT: Når han ikke er beskjeftiget, sitter han i kroken sin med en bok mellom hendene. Folk sier at han
er tolstojaner og ikke spiser kjøtt, og at da han hadde lest Tolstojs “Historien om en hest”, så
testamenterte han skjelettet sitt til anatomirommet på gymnasiet.
EN TT: In his free time he sits in his corner holding a book. People say he’s a Tolstoyan and doesn’t eat
meat and that after he read “Strider” he bequeathed his skeleton to the school’s anatomical collection.
As has been pointed out previously (see p. 118), this Loan Translation is rather ambiguous. It
does highlight the link with Tolstoy, but at the same time, without additional cultural
information, it will remain obscure or misunderstood, as tolstojaner/Tolstoyan may be
interpreted as merely an admirer of Tolstoy, particularly because the character is reading his
book. The reference to a religious and philosophical movement of толстовство is not made
explicit here.
When it comes to the Russian clergy, there are certain traditional solutions that are
repeatedly used in translations. Orthodox поп and батюшка are always treated as prest (NO)
and preist (EN) in my data, while попадья is rendered as prestefru (priest’s wife) in Norwegian
and the more context-specific priest’s widow in English. The originally Greek words патриарх
and митрополит are translated with the entrenched counterparts Patriark/Patriarch and
metropolitt/Metropolitan. Пономарь, a clergyman of the lowest rank in the Orthodox Church,
is rendered with Explicitation by Short Paraphrase in Norwegian — altertjener (altar servant)
and with Functional Substitution in English — sexton. Here is an example involving two
religious figures:
RU ST: – Велик Господь! — воскликнул иеромонах. — Он старец на Афоне. (LUM)
NO TT: “Herren er stor!” utbrøt prestemunken. “Han er starets på Athos”.
EN TT: “Praise be to the Lord,” the hieromonk exclaimed. “He is a hermit on Mount Athos.”
It is true that старец can mean “old monk, hermit” (Kuznetsov 2014). However, in this context
it refers to an old monk that is a spiritual mentor of believers, perhaps other monks (Efremova
2000), as it is indicated that he is living on Mount Athos, home to many Orthodox monasteries.
It is difficult to speculate about the motivation of the Norwegian translator for choosing
Retention with no specification in this case. The broader context does not reveal any details
about what the term starets implies. The other realia in the excerpt above is иеромонах
referring to a monk who is also a priest in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Both solutions —
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prestemunk and hieromonk — can be regarded as calques, although the Norwegian one
translates both parts of the word, while the English does not.
The word кума is an interesting Russian realia, which may refer to either the godmother
in relation to the godfather and the parents of the godchild or mother of the child in relation to
the godfather and godmother. In Medeia i ee deti, one character says about herself and her
husband:
RU ST: – Точно, в Каменку к куме ездили. (LUM)
NO TT: “Det stemmer, det, vi var en tur i Kamenka hos gudmor.”
EN TT: “That’s right enough, we went to Kamenka to see my godmother.”
The Norwegian translator chooses a safe solution gudmor without specifying whose
godmother this is. The English translator, however, uses the possessive pronoun my which
turns this solution into a mistranslation. The character’s кума is either the godmother of her
child (if she has one) or the mother of a child for whom the character herself is the godmother.
In other words, it cannot be her own godmother.
The following example describes a ritual performed by a shaman, during which he,
through singing and beating in a tambourine, achieves an ecstatic state and communicates with
spirits:
RU ST: На праздник все идут на торжественное камлание, на трибуне областной шаман у
памятника в центральном сквере (...). (MS)
NO TT: På en spesiell høytidsdag går alle for å høre sjamanen og trommen, distriktets sjaman sitter på
en tribune ved minnesmerket på plassen midt i landsbyen (...).
EN TT: On the holiday everyone attends the shaman’s kamlanie. On the tribune is the provincial shaman
next to the statue in the central square (...).
The Norwegian translator translates the name of the ritual descriptively: people come for å
høre sjamanen og trommen (to listen to the shaman and tambourine). The English TT, on the
other hand, uses Retention in italics kamlanie and specifies the actor of the ritual — shaman.
However, it must be difficult for the TT readers to infer from this solution what the ritual
consists of. Here is the second and last occurrence of this term:
RU ST: Шаман после камлания говорит в микрофон, еще тяжело дыша и обмахиваясь бубном,
как веером (…). (MS)
NO TT: Når sjamanen har sunget og trommet ferdig, taler han i mikrofonen, fremdeles tung i pusten
veiver han med trommen, bruker den som vifte (...).
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EN TT: After the kamlanie the shaman speaks into the microphone, still panting and waving the
tambourine at himself like a fan.
The English TT features Retention with no specification this time, while the Norwegian
translator transforms the Russian phrase после камлания into a paraphrasing clause — når
sjamanen har sunget og trommet ferdig (when the shaman is done singing and drumming).
Clearly, the latter solutions can be said to be more domesticating compared to Retention.
As far as various Orthodox religious holidays are concerned, they are typically quite
similar to those of other Christian churches. However, there are differences in dates and certain
traditions associated with these holidays. Their names often have a different origin in Russian
compared to English and Norwegian: a typical example found in my data is Вербное
воскресение (Pussy Willow Sunday), the Sunday before Orthodox Easter which corresponds
to Palm Sunday in English-speaking countries and palmesøndag in Norway. The Russian name
is motivated by the fact that palm branches were replaced by willows in Russia and became an
important attribute of the holiday. In my data, it is rendered with formal correspondents Palm
Sunday and palmesøndag, however there is a potential for domestication in this case — a calque
is perfectly possible. Other examples from my data include Сретение → Hellig Tre Kongers
Dag (NO), Candlemas (EN); Успение → Maria hensovelse (NO), Assumption (EN). All these
solutions can be classified as Functional Substitution. Below is an example of Functional
Substitution where the original realia is replaced with the adjacent holiday:
RU ST: Впервые такие грустные святки. Мне так плохо! (MS)
NO TT: Det er første gang vi har hatt en så trist jul. Jeg er så elendig til mote!
EN TT: For the first time, a sad Christmas. I feel so bad!
Святки refers to a two-week period from Orthodox Christmas Eve to Epiphany. This was
typically a time for parties, mummery, fortune telling and caroling (Gerhart 2012: 258), and
the teenage protagonist is not enjoying it for the first time. Both translators opt for Functional
Substitution jul/Christmas, because there is no specific term for this period in English and
Norwegian. Despite the fact that girl dates her diary entry December, 27, the translation
solutions will not cause confusion, as the words jul and Christmas are often used to refer to
Christmas holidays or Christmastide.
The religious holiday Сороки (День памяти сорока мучеников) mentioned in
Shishkin’s Venerin volos presents quite a challenge for the translators, because the character
has associations with it based on its homonymy with сороки — the name of a bird:
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RU ST: На Сороки, 9 марта, она печет жаворонков с распростертыми крыльями, как бы летящих,
с глазами-изюминами. (...) Я убеждена, что этот праздник связан каким-то образом с сорокой-
белобокой, и очень удивляюсь, узнав, что таким образом мы отмечаем день сорока мучеников
Севастийских. (MS)
NO TT: Til Soroki, 9. mars, baker hun boller som ser ut som lerker med vingene spent ut, som om de
flyr, med rosiner til øyne. (...) Jeg er overbevist om at denne helligdagen er forbundet på en eller annen
måte med fuglen skjære, den som er hvit i sidene, og jeg blir svært forbauset da jeg får vite at det vi
egentlig feirer på denne måten, er de førti martyrer fra Sebasteia.
Translator’s endnote: Soroka — сорока — det russiske navnet på fuglen skjære. Sorok betyr tallet 40.
Soroki er navnet på en russisk helligdag, 22. mars, De førti martyrer fra Sebasteia.
EN TT: On Soroki, March 9, she bakes lark cakes with spread wings, as if they were flying, and raisin
eyes. (...) I’m convinced that this holiday is somehow connected with magpies — soroki — and am very
surprised to learn that this is how we celebrate the Day of the Soroki — the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste.
Both translators retain the original name of the holiday Soroki and further explain the
character’s confusion in two different ways. The Norwegian translator provides a translator’s
note that clarifies the homonymy of the terms for the holiday and the bird. In the main text,
however, there is no reference to the endnotes, and it is easy for the TT readers to overlook
them until they reach the end of the book. The English translator incorporates an explanation
in the main text. She adds the transliterated Russian word for magpies, in italics, and later
specifies that Soroki refers to the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste. The fact that the number сорок is
what gives the name to the holiday Сороки is not revealed.
A summary of the descriptive statistics for religion-related realia are presented below:
Table 18. Rendering of the Russian religion realia in the English and Norwegian TTs
Norwegian English
Median = 3
Mode = 3
Total = 59
Median = 3
Mode = 3
Total = 59
The calculations yield identical results for the Norwegian and English translations: the modes
and medians equal 3, which corresponds to Explicitation by Hypernym in my model. Other
frequent translation shifts include Functional Substitution and Loan Translation. The Mann–
Whitney U test confirms that there is no significant difference between the two groups of data.
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6.2.12 Realia denoting ethnic groups
This group contains realia denoting indigenous ethnic groups (e.g. тунгусы, караимы,
петровские немцы, башкирка, древляне, орочи), including humorous or derogatory terms
(e.g. ходя, жидочек, хохол).
Russia is a multinational country, a home for a great number of ethnic groups. Most of
the Russian names for these ethnic minorities have what Pedersen refers to as “Official
Equivalents”, or “ready-made solutions” registered in SL–TL dictionaries (Pedersen 2011: 97–
100). These TL dictionary equivalents are nevertheless of such low frequency that they are
either totally unknown to the TL readers or sound vaguely familiar without communicating
much information.
Several subgroups can be distinguished within this class of realia. The first one covers
names of larger ethnic groups that may be known to some extent to Norwegian- and English-
speaking readers. These are typically rendered with Retention: башкирка → basjkirkvinne,
Bashkir woman; татарин → tatar, Tatar; черкесы → tjerkessere, Circassian; калмыки →
kalmykkene, the Kalmyks.
Further, there is a subgroup of ethnic terms which are perceived by some translators as
less familiar: караимы, петровские немцы, древляне, печенеги, гагаузы, орочи, тунгусы.
In this case, Retention might be complemented by Extratextual Specification:
RU ST: Первого сентября каждый год ритуальные побоища между школами — побеждают то
орочи, то тунгусы. (MS)
NO TT: Ved skolestart første september er det hvert år et ritual at skolene ryker i hop i slagsmål — snart
er det orotsjerne som vinner, snart tunguserne.
Translator’s note: “orotsjer — lite folk i Khabarovsk-distriktet i Øst-Russland; tungusere — mongolsk
folk i Nordøst-Sibir” (orotsjer — a small minority in Khabarovsk district in Eastern Russia; tungusere —
a Mongolian minority in Northeastern Siberia).
EN TT: The first of September every year are the ritual brawls between schools. Sometimes the Orochs
win, sometimes the Tungus.
Both words are not just mentioned in passing, they occur many times throughout the novel:
орочи 28 times and тунгусы 14 times. It is noteworthy then that, while the Norwegian
translator gives an explanation to these words in the endnotes, the English translator chooses
not to explicate the meaning of these terms. This tendency continues for other ethnic realia:
while in the English translations, the Pechenegs, the Gagauz and the Crimean Tatars are
rendered with Retention proper, with no further explanation, in the Norwegian TT, drevljaner,
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petsjeneger, gagausere, krim-tatarer are explained in the paratext. On one occasion, we see a
double Specification — in addition to a paratextual comment, the Norwegian translator makes
use of Intratextual Specification at the first occurrence of древляне:
RU ST: Уверяют, что бежали из Жидятина — мочи не стало терпеть преследований древлян. (MS)
NO TT: De forsikret oss om at de har rømt fra en jødebydel — de hadde ikke krefter lenger til å holde ut
forfølgelsene fra den slaviske stammen som bodde der, drevljanerne.
EN TT: They assure us they’d fled from their Anatevka; they couldn’t take the villagers’ persecution
anymore.
The scene shows a Jewish refugee family at a Swiss immigration office as they are describing
their brutal experience of anti-Semitism in a Slavic village where they lived. Both the name of
the village Жидятин 57 and the name of the local people древляне are used rather
metaphorically or as an additional indication of the made-up nature of the refugees’ story. It is
striking how differently the realia древляне is treated. Despite the metaphorical nature of the
utterance, the Norwegian TT renders the word in a rather foreignizing way: an explanation
complements Retention and is incorporated in the main text — den slaviske stammen som
bodde der, drevljanerne (the Slavic tribe that lived there, the Drevlians). Moreover, drevljaner
is explained in the endnotes of the Norwegian TT. The English translator, on the other hand,
uses neutral Contextual Substitution (the villagers) which essentially eliminated the Jewish–
Slavic conflict from the text.
Another example of Intratextual Specification is found in the treatment of петровские
немцы:
RU ST: Главный предок был из петровских немцев, оба деда, и по материнской линии тоже,
профессорствовали. (LUM)
NO TT: Hovedstamfaren var en av de tyskerne som hadde gjort tjeneste hos Peter den store, og begge
bestefedrene hans, også morfaren, hadde vært professorer.
EN TT: His most prominent ancestor was one of Peter the Great’s Germans; both grandfathers, paternal
and maternal, were professors.
The lexical item петровские немцы differs from орочи, гагаузы and the like in that the head-
word in the phrase is not problematic in translation. However, a straightforward calque —
Peter’s Germans — would have been not transparent enough to the TT readers. Thus, the
Norwegian and English translators employ Intratextual Specification, though the degree of
57 This may be a reference to Oleg Iur’ev’s novel Poluostrov Zhidiatin where a fictional village with this name is described.
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specification is not the same. In the English TT, it is merely indicated that петровские refers
to tsar Peter the Great without explaining the connection between the tsar and the Germans.
By contrast, in the Norwegian TT, it is specified that the Germans were invited by Peter the
Great to do various kinds of jobs — de tyskerne som hadde gjort tjeneste hos Peter den store
(the Germans who had served at Peter the Great). More precisely, many Germans were
encouraged to move to Russia and work there under his rule, but far from all of them worked
directly for him.
The name of a very small ethnic group living in Crimea караимы occurs twice in
Ulitskaia’s novel and is rendered differently at its first and second occurrence. Here is the first
time it is encountered in the novel:
RU ST: Фиркович, главный врач, из ученой караимской семьи, из мятых и битых (…). (LUM)
NO TT: Overlegen Firkovitsj, som var urinnvåner på Krim og fra en lærd karaimsk familie, var en av
dem som hadde blitt herjet og husert med.
EN TT: Firkovich, the sanatorium’s chief consultant, was a native Crimean from a scholarly Karaim
family and had been kicked about quite a bit in his time.
The Norwegian rendition, urinnvåner på Krim, karaimsk (native of Crimea, Karaim), and the
English one, a native Crimean, Karaim, are almost identical solutions where the exotic word
karaimsk/Karaim is preceded by a brief specification explaining that the Karaims are an
indigenous ethnic group of Crimea. The other time this realia occurs, it is treated differently:
RU ST: Крымские татары, немцы, отчасти понтийские греки и караимы были к этому времени
из Крыма уже депортированы (...). (LUM)
NO TT: På denne tiden var krim-tatarer, tyskere, en god del pontiske grekere og karaimer allerede
deportert fra Krim (...).
EN TT: The Crimean Tatars, the Germans, in part the Pontic Greeks, and the Karaims had already
been deported from the Crimea by this time (...).
Perhaps owing to the previous explanation, both translators choose Retention proper this
time — karaimer/the Karaims. The other realia found in this utterance — крымские
татары — is given a detailed explanation in the Norwegian paratext: it is specified when
Tatars settled in Crimea, when they received an autonomy, when and why they were deported
and finally exonerated. The English TT, once again, does not offer any additional information.
One more subgroup of realia deserves a closer look — various informal, often
derogatory terms for ethnic groups. These words not only denote a specific ethnicity, but also
communicate an emotional, often scornful, attitude of certain SL speakers towards the ethnic
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minority. This type of stylistically marked realia is challenging to handle, and often translators
are compelled to choose between the referential meaning of the word or the connotative
meaning. Here is one example, where the referential meaning is prioritized:
RU ST: (...) с подсобного хозяйства, которым ведал пройдоха огородник, веселый и бесстыжий
хохол с искалеченной правой рукой. (LUS)
NO TT: (...) fra skolens egen kjøkkenhage som luringen av en grønnsakgartner — en munter og skamløs
ukrainer med forkrøplet høyre arm (...).
EN TT: These were diverted from the college smallholding whose manager was a wily nurseryman, a
cheery Ukrainian with a maimed right hand and no conscience.
Both translators choose Stylistic Adaptation — they convey only the core meaning of the word
хохол. The derogatory connotations are not communicated in translation, but the context
suggests a negative attitude (бесстыжий → skamløs/with no conscience).
In the next example, the obsolete slang word for the Chinese ходя58 is used in Akunin’s
historical novel:
RU ST: – Эй, ходя, что стоит вот это? — показал я на пагоду, доставая кошелек. (BA)
NO TT: “Hei du, hva koster den der?” Jeg pekte på pagoden og tok opp lommeboken.
EN TT: “Hey, pedlar, how much is that?” I asked, pointing at the pagoda and taking out my purse.
The referential meaning of ходя is not conveyed in the TTs. We see Contextual Substitution in
both cases — du (you) as a general form of address in Norwegian and a more context-specific
pedlar in English. The Norwegian solution is arguably more stylistically marked than the
English one: as many characters in the Norwegian TT use the formal De when talking to each
other, the informal du, especially in the combination hei du, sounds rather rude.
Another interesting stylistically marked realia is жиды. The narrator in Tsypkin’s Leto
v Badene is trying to make sense of Dostoevsky’s anti-Semitism and the frequency of
derogatory terms for Jews in his works. The first time the word жиды occurs in the Russian
novel, it has a diminutive form:
RU ST: В гостинице им то и дело попадались на лестнице жидочки, навязывающие свои услуги
и даже бежавшие за пролеткой, в которой ехали Анна Григорьевна и Федор Михайлович, чтобы
продать им янтарные мундштуки, пока те не прогнали их (…). (LT)
58 Russkii semanticheskii slovar’ (Shvedova 1998)
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NO TT: På hotellet støtte de rett som det var på små jødetamper i trappeoppgangen som prakket på dem
sine tjenester og som til og med løp etter kalesjevognen som Anna Grigorjevna og Fjodor Mikhajlovitsj
kjørte i, for å selge dem sigarettmunnstykker av rav, like til de ble jaget vekk (...).
EN TT: (...) where they were constantly pestered by loathsome little Jews thrusting their services upon
them on the hotel stairs and even going as far as chasing after the horse-cab in which Anna Grigor’yevna
and Fyodor Mikhaylovich were travelling, trying, until they were sent packing, to sell them amber
cigarette-holders (...).
The diminutive form of the Russian word can be interpreted in two ways: жидочки may refer
to children or teenagers, or it may be seen as an intensifier of the offensive term жид, i.e. the
diminutive is used in a pejorative sense. Either way, the translators attempt to convey the
offensiveness of the original word and the diminutive suffix and do it in virtually the same way:
in English, two premodifiers are added to Jews, and in Norwegian the premodifier små (little)
is followed by the compound jødetamper where tamp is an offensive word referring to an
obnoxious rude person.
At one point in the novel, the narrator discusses an article written by Dostoevsky on
Jews:
RU ST: (...) наконец-то я натолкнулся на статью, специально посвященную евреям, – она так и
называлась: «Еврейский вопрос», — я даже не удивился, обнаружив ее, потому что должен же он
был в каком-то одном месте сосредоточить всех жидов, жидков, жиденят и жидёнышей,
которыми он так щедро пересыпал страницы своих романов (...) (LT)
NO TT: (...) til slutt kom jeg over en artikkel som var særlig viet jøder: «Jødespørsmålet», — jeg ble ikke
engang forbauset over å oppdage den, for han måtte jo på et eller annet sted ha konsentrert alle jøder,
jødetamper, jødeunger og jødinner som han så sjenerøst hadde strødd utover sidene i sine romaner
(...).
EN TT: (...) and finally I stumbled on an article especially devoted to the Jews — ‘The Jewish Question’
it was called – and I should not have been surprised to discover it because he was bound after all
somewhere or other to have gathered together in one place all those ‘Jews, Jewesses, Jew-boys and
Yids’ with which he so liberally besprinkled the pages of his novels (...).
In the Russian utterance, the pejorative word жид is used four times, with different diminutive
suffixes at three occasions: -к-, -енят-, -ёныш-. The last two words (жиденята, жидёныши)
most likely refer to children. It is interesting to see what stylistic modifications occur in
translation. In Norwegian, two out of four words are neutral: jøder and jødinner (Jews, Jewish
women). Jødeunger (Jewish children), while not being stylistically neutral, is still less offensive
than жиденята and жидёныши. As a result, the whole TT utterance is less stylistically marked
compared to the original. The same is true for the English TT: only the last word in the list —
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Yids — has the same offensive connotations as the SL жиды. Norwegian and English do not
have enough word-formation resources to convey several pejorative words referring to Jews,
while compensation solutions (with the use of offensive adjectives, for instance) were not
employed for whatever reason.
A summary of the descriptive statistics for this group of realia is presented in Table 19:
Table 19. Rendering of the Russian realia denoting ethnic groups in the English and Norwegian TTs
Norwegian English
Median = 11
Mode = 11
Total = 40
Median = 12
Mode = 12
Total = 40
In total, 40 coupled pairs referring to ethnic groups were identified for the Russian STs and
Norwegian and English TTs. The medians and modes of the two data sets are different, but
very close, and the Mann–Whitney U test reveals that there is no significant difference between
the samples. For English, the most typical procedure that is used to render ethnic realia proves
to be Retention proper. For Norwegian, on the other hand, it is Retention with Extratextual
Specification, which merely confirms the previously discussed observation that English
translators in my selection rarely resort to paratextual means for explaining obscure words to
their readers. The high frequency of Retention, with or without specification, is explained by
the nature of ethnic realia: these lexical items are in a way similar to toponyms and are
traditionally rendered with “official equivalents”. Another noteworthy property of this thematic
group is that Stylistic Adaptation is frequently used for offensive words referring to ethnic
minorities.
6.2.13 Realia describing language
Culture-specific words describing language phenomena is a category missing from Vlakhov
and Florin’s (1986/2012) thematic typology of realia. However, when examining my data,
I discovered a few realia related to language/dialect and decided to include these in a separate
category. This category does not cover dialectal words or other linguistic abnormalities specific
to the given SL. Rather, it concerns metalinguistic elements in the source text describing a
feature of the SL. Below is an illustration of language-related realia:
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RU ST: – Да не спи у меня, вологда! Понятно? (...) Как Фандорин догадался по его виду, что он
вологодский, я не понял — но ванька и в самом деле вовсю налегал на “о”. (BA)
NO TT: “Men du skal ikke sovne for meg, er det klart?” (...) (omitted sentence)
EN TT: “And no sleeping now, Vologda. Understand?” (...) I didn’t understand how Fandorin guessed
from his appearance that he was from Vologda, but the cabby certainly did stretch his vowels to the
limit.
The example above demonstrates how challenging it may be to render metalinguistic elements.
While ordinary realia can often be translated descriptively, a reference to a pronunciation
peculiarity does not lend itself easily to comprehensible paraphrasing in the translation. To be
rendered accurately, the expression “налегал на о” would require a comment explaining the
basics of the Russian phonetic system: the fact that normally the unstressed vowels like o are
reduced in Russian and sound more like a. However, in certain dialects the vowel o is
pronounced as o in all positions, stressed and unstressed. The Norwegian translator, perhaps in
an attempt to avoid a lengthy explanation, omits both the address to the coachman вологда and
the following speculation of the narrator as to how Fandorin managed to identify the
coachman’s origin. The English TT, in contrast, retains the address Vologda and offers a
rendition for the metalinguistic element — “did stretch his vowels to the limit” — which
indicates that there was something unusual about the man’s speech, but does not accurately
describe the original dialectal phenomenon.
Another example found in my data concerns a dialectal feature that also has to do with
the vowel reduction in Russian:
RU ST: – Это еще не самое прискорбное, господин Зюкин, – сказал московский помощник с
характерным “аканьем”, заметив мое неудовольствие. (BA)
NO TT: “Dette er likevel ikke alt, herr Zjukin,” sa min Moskva-assistent da han merket min utilfredshet.
(omitted phrase)
EN TT: “And that is still not the most deplorable thing, Mr Ziukin,” my Moscow assistant said with
those distinctive broad Moscow ‘a’s when he noticed my dissatisfaction.
Here the Norwegian translator, once again, omits the reference to the character’s speech
characteristic while the English translator uses Explicitation — “broad Moscow ‘a’s”. A
thorough translator’s comment would probably include the following explanation:
Akanie may refer to the merging of unstressed a and o by Russian speakers. However, this is
not what the narrator refers to in the utterance above as this sort of vowel reduction was the
norm in the late 19th century when the events in the novel take place, thus it would not attract
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anyone’s attention. What he refers to is the hyperarticulation of the unstressed a and o in the
syllable immediately before the stress, which is typical for Moscow residents. In this case the
unstressed vowel sounds as articulate and long as the stressed one. In the utterance above, the
unstressed o in the word господин would sound like a stressed a. The English solution “broad
Moscow ‘a’s” hints on this phenomenon, though does not elaborate on it.
Another remarkable example related to Russian pronunciation is found in the same
novel by Akunin:
RU ST: – Господин Зьюкин, можно я буду пехевести часы на полминута? (Ей никак не давалось
русское “р” — получалось нечто вроде малороссийского “х”). Больше чем полминута я все
хавно никогда не опаздывала. (BA)
NO TT: “Herr Zjukin, kanskje jeg skulle stille klokken min et halvt minutt frem? For mer enn et halvt
minutt forsinket blir jeg uansett aldri.” (omitted sentence)
EN TT: Mr Ziukin, can I put my watch fohward by half a minute? (She could not manage the Russian
‘r’ – it came out rather like the Little Russian ‘kh’.) I have neveh been lateh than half a minute in any
case.”
The narrator imitates the French accent of the governess by drawing attention to her inability
to articulate the Russian trill r and by replacing the Russian р in her speech by х (пехевести,
хавно). He compares her pronouncing r in the French manner with the Ukrainian voiced glottal
fricative (such as in the word голос). In order to understand the narrator’s remark, the reader
must know how r is typically pronounced in Russian as well as which distinctly Ukrainian
sound he likens it to. The English translator renders both realia by Loan Translation, but it is
questionable whether it would make sense to an English reader. It is also rather interesting that
the governess’s speech is distorted in the same way as in the Russian original, but with a
somewhat odd result: in words where the English r is barely articulated (forward, never, later)
it is replaced with h. The Norwegian translator, like in the previous examples, omits the
discussion of phonetic subtleties.
Metalinguistic remarks in translations like the ones discussed above produce an
interesting effect: readers become acutely aware of the fact that the characters, in fact, speak a
different language. On the one hand, it may be a little disturbing as the translation becomes
more “visible”, on the other hand, it gives the story more authenticity.
Realia describing linguistic phenomena are very few in my data — 8 tokens — which
does not allow me to make a statistical comparison of the TT renditions for this thematic group.
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6.2.14 Realia denoting money
Similar to realia of measurement, realia denoting national currency have very specific
terminological meaning. However, whereas the quantitative meaning of measure lexis is often
conveyed with Functional Substitution in translation (e.g. верста → kilometer), it is not so in
case of currency realia. As a rule, the official names of currency units are rendered with
loanwords rather than functional analogues: rarely will you encounter рубль → dollar. This has
to do with the fact that the monetary units are so closely associated with the country in question
that any currency conversions in the TT would seem odd and out of place. In other words, the
word rouble (or rubel in Norwegian) is so well-entrenched and immediately recognizable as a
national currency that a translator, strictly speaking, does not have a choice between different
translation procedures: рубль is rendered as rouble/rubel in most cases, and in my data, I did
not find any exceptions from that rule. The fact that rouble/rubel is easily recognized by
English– and Norwegian–speaking readers may be indirectly confirmed by an example from
Koronatsiia. The first time the word occurs in this novel, it is distorted by the Japanese accent
of the character Masa:
RU ST: – Эй, ходя, что стоит вот это? – показал я на пагоду, доставая кошелек.
– Рубрь, – ответил наглый азиат, видимо, поняв по моему виду, что торговаться я с ним не стану.
(BA)
NO TT: “Hei du, hva koster den der?” Jeg pekte på pagoden og tok opp lommeboken. “En lubel”, svarte
den frekke asiaten, som tydeligvis så på meg at jeg ikke kom til å prutte.
EN TT: “Hey, pedlar, how much is that?” I asked, pointing at the pagoda and taking out my purse. “One
roubr”, the insolent Oriental replied, evidently having realised from my appearance that I would not try
to haggle with him.
The accent is conveyed in different ways in Norwegian and English TTs, with the English
version being closer to the ST one, but it is still noteworthy that neither of the two translators
resorted to the standard form, probably expecting readers to recognize the original word.
Rendering the other official Russian monetary unit — копейка — does not typically
cause any problems either, though with two reservations. First of all, because копейка is a less
frequent word compared to рубль, to this day there is a great deal of irregularity when it comes
to the English (but not Norwegian) spelling of the word. In my data set, the following three
spellings are encountered in the English TTs: kopek, kopeck and copeck. The second difficulty
associated with копейка comes from the fact that it is more frequently than рубль used in idioms:
e.g. влететь в копеечку, ни копейки, до последней копейки, считать каждую копейку,
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свои пять копеек, etc. Vlakhov and Florin (1986/2012: 163) distinguish between realia proper
and so-called “worn-out realia” which have lost their original referential meaning and are used
in a broader, often figurative, meaning. In case of currency realia, they might signify “money
in general, some amount of money, usually small”. According to Vlakhov and Florin, such
“worn-out realia” can hardly be viewed as realia at all (ibid). However, I have included them
in my analysis because, as my observations confirm, realia in their figurative meaning may still
be treated in both domesticating or foreignizing way. For instance, as we have seen in Section
5.3.2.13, idioms including копейка may be treated in entirely different ways:
RU ST: А еще нашел бумаги из того самого допесочного Египта, когда толмач был молодым
учителем орочей и тунгусов, получал копейки и бегал после школы еще по домашним урокам.
(MS)
NO TT: Jeg fant også noen papirer nettopp fra Egypt før sandfloden, den gang tolkeren var en ung lærer
og underviste orotsjere og tungusere i Sibir, hevet luselønn man ikke kunne leve av, og derfor løp
omkring i husene etter skoletid og gav privattimer.
EN TT: I also found papers from that same antepulvian Egypt, when the interpreter was the young teacher
of Orochs and Tungus, earning kopeks, and after school dashed here and there giving private lessons.
In the example above, we can see both domesticating Contextual Substitution and foreignizing
Retention in the TTs (for a more detailed discussion of this excerpt see p. 133). Another
example comes from Tsypkin’s novel where a character has a wife who “отбирала у него все
деньги до копейки”. Both Norwegian and English translators retain the original fixed
expression although other solutions are surely possible:
NO TT: (…) hans kone tok fra ham alle penger til siste kopek.
EN TT: (…) his wife, who used to take all his money from him, down to the last kopeck.
As far as idioms are concerned, it is interesting to take a look at how the word грош is treated
in translation. In modern Russian, it is exclusively used in idioms, but historically грош had
been a colloquial name of two copecks (until 1838) and later referred to half a copeck (from
1838 till 1917). In Akunin’s novel a character at some point is searching his pockets:
RU ST: Зашарил по карманам в надежде отыскать завалявшийся медный грош или копейку. (BA)
Here грош is used in its literal historical meaning — the colloquial name of a half-a-copeck
coin. The character is unambiguously looking for some small change, and the English TT
renders this sentence accordingly:
EN TT: I rummaged in my pockets, hoping to find a copper half-kopeck or one-kopeck piece.
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The Norwegian translator, however, does not consider reference to the specific coins
particularly important in the given context. He omits копейка and refers to медный грош as en
kobberslant (a small copper coin):
NO TT: Jeg rotet i lommene i håp om å finne en kobberslant.
The translation procedures used to treat грош in the two examples above may be identified as
Stylistic Adaptation (for English) and Explicitation by a Hypernym (for Norwegian), with the
Norwegian rendition being more domesticating and less specific.
In another scene in the novel, the protagonist admits that he is broke using the following
idiom: RU ST: (…) а у меня самого не было ни гроша. (BA)
Here грош is clearly used in its figurative meaning, and one might expect a paraphrasing
solution in translation. Interestingly, though, both Norwegian and English translators rephrase
this fixed expression with the loanword kopek/kopeck:
NO TT: (…) og selv hadde jeg ikke så mye som en kopek.
EN TT: (…) and I didn’t have a kopeck on me.
While in this excerpt, though used figuratively, грош retains the association with money, in the
example below the figurative use of this word cannot be viewed as anything but a metaphor
and yet treated differently in the two TTs:
RU ST: Я только махнул рукой:
– Всей вашей психологии в нынешних обстоятельствах грош цена. (BA)
EN TT: Jeg bare viftet det vekk: “All psykologien Deres er i denne situasjonen ikke en eneste kopek
verdt.”
NO TT: I gestured impatiently. “All your psychology is worth nothing in the present circumstances.”
In this utterance, we deal with the Russian common figurative expression грош цена
(worthless), and it is interesting to register the difference between the two TT solutions. The
English TT focuses on the general meaning of the idiom and treats it accordingly — with
Contextual Substitution, using plain language (“worth nothing”) and losing in expressive power.
In contrast, the Norwegian TT opts for a more foreignizing solution: it includes the Russian
currency into the idiom, but not the one originally used in it (kopek replaces грош), because
presumably kopek retains some “local color” while at the same time is familiar enough to
convey the figurative meaning (“worth very little”).
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Like many other languages, Russian abounds in various colloquial and slang terms for
coins and banknotes. These informal words, both contemporary and archaic ones, present
certain challenge in translation. As seen above, one of the possible translation procedures for
rendering such realia is Stylistic Adaptation (e.g. грош → half-kopeck). Here the referential
meaning is fully preserved, and the shift is primarily stylistic. Let us consider other examples
where Stylistic Adaptation was observed:
RU ST: – А рупь с полтинничком? – жалобно произнес возница, обращаясь к загримированному
Фандорину. (BA)
NO TT: “Og betalingen?” spurte drosjekusken klagende, henvendt til den sminkede Fandorin.
EN TT: “Well, what about a rouble and a half, then?” the driver whined plaintively, addressing the
disguised state counsellor.
In the above example, two colloquialisms are used in the ST: рупь (derived from рубль) and
полтинничек (diminutive of the slang word полтинник equal to, depending on the context, 50
kopecks, 50 roubles or even 50 000 roubles). Both the Norwegian and English versions are
stylistically quite different from the Russian ST: while the original informal expression sounds
very casual and, due to the diminutive, ingratiating, the translations remain neutral. The English
TT preserves the referential meaning of the Russian sentence (a rouble and a half) which allows
the reader to get an idea of how much the driver expects to be paid (however, neither the
present-day Russian reader nor the English reader would be able to understand whether this is
a reasonable price to ask for a ride). The Norwegian translator goes even further in
neutralization and generalization of the original expression opting for Contextual Substitution
— betaling (payment). Both translations are stylistically unmarked and do not add to the speech
characteristics of the commoner.
It is interesting to note, though, that in this particular case the translators’ choice is partly
motivated by Fandorin’s answer. After being reminded of the payment (“А рупь с
полтинничком?”), Fandorin, not willing to pay, replies with a rude slang expression that
mimics the structure of the driver’s request: “А хрен с приборчиком?” Both translators
apparently wanted to retain the similarity of the request and the answer: in English a rouble and
a half is echoed by Fandorin’s a kick and a poke while in Norwegian betalingen is mirrored by
julingen (walloping).
Another example where Stylistic Adaptation is used in order to preserve the referential
meaning of the expression is found in Rokovye iaitsa where a minor character complains:
RU ST: – Пропали мои полтора червячка. (MB)
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NO TT: “Der røk mine femten rubler…”
EN TT: “So that’s farewell to a few more copecks.”
Червячок, which is derived from the colloquial червонец (equal to 10 roubles) and is even
more informal than червонец, corresponds to the neutral rubler (or rather, 10 rubler) in the
Norwegian TT. The expressive component of червячок that contributes to the intensity of the
speaker’s regret is absent in the translation. The English solution is a little puzzling, as not only
it gives no specific amount of money replacing it with the more general “a few more”, but it
also explicates червячок with copecks instead of roubles. In this case, it is not easy to say
whether the currency unit used in the TT is chosen intentionally or by mistake.
Another interesting example concerns the obsolete colloquialism четвертная, which
was in common use both in pre-revolutionary Russia and the Soviet Union. In the English
translation of Akunin’s novel, the word is consistently rendered with the stylistically unmarked
twenty-five roubles or twenty-five-rouble note. The same is the case in the Norwegian TT in all
but one occurrence. Negotiating with a coachman, detective Fandorin says:
RU ST: – Всю ночь будешь с нами. Секретное дело. За труды получишь четвертную. (BA)
NO TT: “Du skal være med oss hele natten. Hemmelig oppdrag. Du skal få det firdobbelte for innsatsen.”
In the other three occurrences, the Norwegian TT renders the slang word as femogtyve rubler
(twenty-five roubles), i.e. with Stylistic Adaptation, but in the one exception above the solution
is different. At first sight, it might seem like the translator used a calque and четвертная
roughly corresponds to firdobbelt. It is, however, not the case. The Russian colloquialism
originates from the word четверть (a quarter) and refers to a quarter of one hundred roubles.
The other Norwegian renderings of this realia suggests that the translator is well aware of that.
Despite that, in the above example, he renders it with the Norwegian word that means quadruple.
It is possible to speculate that the mistranslation might have been caused by a mistake made in
Berkov’s Stor russisk–norsk ordbok (Russian–Norwegian Dictionary) (2011) where
четвертная is defined as follows:
четвертнǁая ж 〈прл〉 уст., прост., ~ой I м 〈прл〉 разг. уст. 25 rubler II прл firedoblet
The dictionary entry describes четвертной as having a second sense — quadruple but it seems
to be confused with another Russian word — четверной (which indeed means quadruple). A
mistranslation like that, although unfortunate and potentially confusing (quadruple amount of
what?), is unlikely to lead to a misinterpretation of the whole scene.
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It is not surprising that, when rendering slang words for currency, translators often resort
to Stylistic Adaptation — after all, other procedures are not easy to employ. Retention, even if
used with an extratextual comment, probably would have been overly distracting in many cases.
Imagine a TT where “Вчера проспорил пятьдесят целковых Масе” (BA) would have been
treated as “The day before I had lost fifty tselkovyis on the bet with Masa” instead of “fifty
roubles”. Would it add to the national/historical flavor of the TT or would it simply obscure the
text? Is Retention capable of conveying the expressive meaning of the original slang word? In
my data, Retention is only used to treat the official monetary units — рубль, копейка — as
well as the archaic алтын. Functional Substitution rooted in the TC is also difficult to apply,
as most slang terms for money are so closely associated with the national currency that using a
corresponding term from a different culture (so that целковый, for instance, would be replaced
with the American ace) would be odd. In my data, such examples are not found. Loan
Translation is rarely used — mostly when slang terms are derived from numbers (e.g. десятка
might be rendered as tenner in English or tier in Norwegian). It may be viewed as a “semantic
calque” discussed in Section 5.3.2.5: no formal structural elements are imported, rather the
word that is already part of the TL lexicon is given a new meaning: that is, tenner which
originally meant “a ten-dollar or ten-pound note” in the new context signifies “a ten-rouble
note”.
One last important remark that needs to be made in relation to money realia is that,
despite often being used with numbers expressing very specific values, these lexical items are
almost always perceived as a crude approximation in literary translation. There are two reasons
for that: first of all, the face values of different currency units change over the course of time
(the Soviet rouble in the 1970s is obviously not equal to the present-day rouble); and secondly,
since currency realia of the ST are rarely converted to the target culture currency, the target
audience may only rely on the context to figure out whether the named amount of money is
large or not. The following example can make this point clearer:
RU ST: (...) у Гончарова, такого же вялого и одутловатого барина, как и его Обломов, за которого
ему платили 400 рублей с листа, в то время как ему, Достоевскому, при его нужде платили всего
100 рублей, были какие-то тухлые глаза, как у вареной рыбы (…). (LT)
NO TT: (...) Gontsjarov, som var en like vissen og oppblåst godseier som hans Oblomov, som han fikk
betalt 400 rubler for et trykkark for mens Dostojevskij i sin nød bare fikk 100 rubler, hadde noen liksom
bedervede øyne, som hos en kokt fisk (…).
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EN TT: (...) Goncharov, just as sluggish and bloated a gentleman as his creation, Oblomov, used to receive
400 roubles per printer’s sheet, whereas he, Dostoyevsky — for all his poverty — used to be paid only
100 — and the man’s eyes looked putrefied somehow, like those of a boiled fish (...).
The excerpt above is a good example of how deceptive money realia may be. On the one hand,
the target readers are given precise numbers (400 and 100) coupled with the loanword
(rubel/rouble) that is relatively well-known across the world. However, the readers have no
way of learning how much it is equal to in their present-day national currency — today’s US
Dollars or Norwegian krones. In fictional texts, however, it is rarely very important to know
the exact value of the mentioned money realia. In our example above, it suffices to understand
that 100 roubles are not much in the narrator’s eyes, (the word всего → bare/only points to
that), and that it is four times less than what the other author, Goncharov, receives in salary.
Only the most meticulous readers would be interested to know just how much it is.
The above sentence also illustrates the following point: not only excerpts like that where
the two sums of money are clearly opposed to each other, but all the money realia occurred in
a given text contribute to building some kind of a monetary system of the novel’s setting. In
other words, various values mentioned here and there in the text might help an attentive reader
to form a certain crude system of monetary relations in his/her mind that will help to understand
individual values. It is particularly the case when money realia are encountered frequently (e.g.
in Akunin’s novel there are 50 token occurrences of money realia for 12 types).
After excluding рубль from the quantitative analysis (for the reasons described in
Section 5.2), I can present the statistics for the Norwegian and English renderings of currency
realia:
Table 20. Rendering of the Russian currency realia in the English and Norwegian TTs
Norwegian English
Median = 4
Mode = 4
Total = 33
Median = 4
Mode = 4
Total = 34
As we can see, the results are identical: the modes and medians are the same for the Norwegian
and English TTs and equal to 4. This means that, for my data set, the most typical translation
procedure for rendering currency realia is Stylistic Adaptation, according to my model. This
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result is undeniably affected by the fact that рубль was excluded from the quantitative analysis
as it is arguably the most frequent currency realia and it is always rendered with Retention.
6.2.15 Realia denoting units of measurement
Words denoting units of measurement — that is, units of mass, length, area, volume etc. — on
the one hand, have very precise terminological meaning and, on the other hand, rarely behave
as technical terms in a fictional text. For my set of data, which includes only recent translations,
realia of measurement might become translation-resistant in two cases:
1. when the narrative is set in modern times, but the TC and SC do not share the
same measurement system at the time of translation (as with inch in the US vs.
centimeter in most countries);
2. when the narrative is set in the past, and TC and SC did not share the same
measurement system at that time (as is the case with a lot of archaic units of
measure);
Let us discuss the two categories separately. With the advent of International System of Units,
the first category — when units of measurement are different in two countries at the time of
translation — is predictably less typical than it used to be. One such case is the US system,
which is known to remain different from that of most countries. Thus, American-English
translators, unlike Norwegian ones, face the choice between adjusting the TT items to the
familiar US measurement system or leave them as in the original. Whereas in the American
translations of Medeia i ee deti and Venerin volos lexical items such as километр, метр,
сантиметр, килограмм and грамм are consistently rendered with Retention (kilometer, meter,
centimeter, kilogram and gram), this is not the case in the American translation of Sonechka.
Here we encounter килограмм domesticated as pound as well as three occurrences of length
units which are rendered not quite consistently. In the first two cases километры and метры
are converted into miles and inches:
RU ST: Ночью знакомый железнодорожник посадил их в маленький, трехвагонный состав,
стоявший в полутора километрах от станции, в вагон, сохранивший следы благородного
происхождения в виде добротных деревянных панелей. (LUS)
EN TT: That night a railwayman they knew got them onto a small three-carriage train that was standing
a mile outside the station, into a coach that still retained traces of its noble origins in the form of good
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solid wood paneling, although its soft seats and folding tables had long since been ripped out and the
Pullman luxury replaced by slatted benches.
RU ST: На полуметровой сцене он сооружал то горьковскую ночлежку, то выморочный кабинет
покойника, то громоздил бессмертные лабазы Островского. (LUS)
EN TT: On a stage eighteen inches across he could re-create Gorky’s night shelter for the denizens of
the lower depths, the ownerless study of Tolstoy’s intestate living corpse, or cram onto it the ever-popular
shops of Ostrovsky’s grain merchants.
However, in the third case, the TT item сантиметры is for some reason rendered with
centimeters and not inches as might be expected:
RU ST: Каждая вещь упрямо сопротивлялась, не желая занимать отведенное ей место, все
топорщилось лишними углами, везде не хватало нескольких сантиметров. (LUS)
EN TT: Each item resisted obstinately, reluctant to fit the space allotted it: invariably some corner stuck
out, invariably a few extra centimeters were needed.
It is possible to speculate that, while in the previous two cases we deal with rather precise
physical length which the target reader might want to envision (1.5 kilometer, 0.5 meter), in the
last example, on the contrary, actual length is less important and therefore presented as a very
rough approximation (a few centimeters), which, even kept unaltered in the translation, will be
understood by the reader. Notably, it never occurs in my data set that words like
meter/centimeter or gram are explained to the American reader in the paratext, perhaps due to
the fact that the metric system is widely used all over the world.
The second case — when the narrative is set in the past and archaic measures are used —
is more interesting for investigation because the translator not only has the choice between
foreignization and domestication, but two domesticating solutions are available, though both of
them fall under the category of Functional Substitution. We may refer to them as “archaic
functional analogue” and “contemporary functional analogue”.
Let us first have a look at examples where archaic measures are treated in a foreignizing
way. Describing a hanging bridge, one character in Koronatsiia says:
RU ST: Правда, там под ним был не овраг в двадцать саженей, а д-двухверстная пропасть. (BA)
EN TT: Of course, the drop below it was not twenty sazhens, it was a gulf of two versts.
Throughout the English translation of Akunin’s novel, Russian сажень and верста are
consistently rendered with Retention — as sazhen and verst (sazhen being always set in italics
in the TT is perhaps due to the fact that, unlike verst, it is included in most English-language
216
dictionaries). Neither of these two words are given any explanation within or outside the text.
Presumably the foreignizing solution is chosen in order to retain the archaic and exotic flavor
of the novel set in pre-revolutionary Russia. These units of measurement are not easy to
comprehend even for the present-day Russian native speaker, but the ST author essentially has
no choice but to use them to remain faithful to the historical truth. The translator, on the other
hand, may opt for a modernized solution as the target reader is unlikely to question it due to the
limited knowledge of the Russian history. The Norwegian translator did precisely that —
converted the archaic measures to the metric system:
NO TT: Riktignok hang den ikke over en kløft på førti meter, men over en avgrunn på mer enn to
kilometer.
Comparing these two solutions, we might say that whereas in the former case the
national/historical flavor is perceived as central by the translator and thus retained, in the latter
one the focus is on the precise distance. Although the meaning of these realia is not revealed in
the English translation, some of it may be understood from the context. The character clearly
compares something relatively small to something much larger, and the word gulf helps to
emphasize that. The English TT is a good illustration of the fact that the exact length (or mass
or volume) is rarely of great importance in fictional texts, so Retention is perfectly feasible.
It is particularly interesting to encounter Retention even when the units of measurement
are used in the figurative sense in the ST and Contextual Substitution almost suggests itself:
RU ST: Помнишь поездку в Стрельну? Как в нас летели камни, когда пошли погулять по парку?
Надо же предупреждать влюбленных за версту огромными плакатами, что в большом дворце
Петра теперь детдом!
NO TT: Husker du da vi kjørte til Strelna? Og det fløy stener om ørene på oss da vi spaserte i parken?
Man burde virkelig advare elskende par på en versts avstand med store plakater om at det nu er
barnehjem i det store Peterpalasset.
EN TT: Remember our trip to Strelna? How stones flew at us when we went for a walk in the park? They
should warn lovers a verst ahead with big posters that there’s an orphanage in Peter’s great palace now!
Here an approximate rendering of за версту (for instance, from far off) would not cause a big
semantic loss, as the actual unit of measurement is of little importance in the given context.
However, both Norwegian and English translators choose to retain the archaic measure with
the only difference that the Norwegian one also gives an explanation of the term in the endnotes.
In contrast, the adjective пудовый which is almost invariably used in the metaphorical
sense is translated accordingly:
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RU ST: Всюду слякоть и сырость. Разъезженная танками жирная глина налипает на сапоги
пудовыми комьями. (MS)
NO TT: Det er gjørmete og rått overalt. Tanksene smører den feite leiren utover alt, klistrer seg til støvlene
i blytunge kladaser.
EN TT: There’s slime and wet everywhere. After it’s driven over by tanks the greasy mud sticks to your
boots in heavy clumps.
Here the actual mass does not matter, and it is the figurative sense (very heavy) that is likely to
be transferred. Other translations of this word encountered in my data include kjempedigre
(huge), himmelhøy (sky-high) for Norwegian and hefty for English.
Sometimes the translator, with the intention of keeping the historic flavor, finds an
archaic functional analogue in the TL. Here is an excerpt from Bulgakov’s science-fiction novel:
RU ST: Змея приблизительно в пятнадцать аршин и толщиной в человека, как пружина,
выскочила из лопухов. (MB)
NO TT: En slange omtrent femten alen lang og med tykkelse som et menneske kom farende som en
springfjær ut av borrekrattet.
EN TT: A snake about thirty feet long and as thick as a man uncoiled like a spring and shot out of the
weeds.
The English TT translates аршины as feet. Since feet, unlike аршины, is still in use in the US,
the translator did not have to decide between an “archaic functional analogue” and a
“contemporary functional analogue”. The Norwegian translator, on the other hand, does not
have a similar time-neutral option and, in order to avoid anachronisms, makes use of the local
archaic unit of length, alen, which incidentally roughly corresponds to the Russian аршин.
This example is interesting with regard to the target audience. Since the snake-like
monster emerges for the first time in the above scene, it might be important for both the ST and
TT readers to visualize the actual dimensions of the creature. The novel was published in 1925,
thus Bulgakov’s contemporaries had no difficulty understanding the description above, but the
present-day Russian readers may need an additional explanation. The Norwegian and English
TTs examined here are relatively recent, thus the translators have the choice between retaining
the historical flavor of the novel (for instance, by Retention, as was done in the earlier example
with sazhens and versts) or making the realia more accessible (through Functional Substitution).
Both translators opt for Functional Substitution, but with different results. Whereas American-
English readers would have no problem visualizing the 30-feet gigantic snake, 15 alen for the
Norwegian reader is arguably just as cryptic as 15 аршин is for the present-day Russian reader.
In other words, whenever Functional Substitution is performed by means of archaic lexis, the
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meaning of the realia remains rather obscure. However, it is important to note that in the
example above, other hints in the text suggest that this creature is gigantic (the fact that the
snake is “as thick as a man” and is able to lift a human being above the ground, which is revealed
later in the scene).
Another noteworthy example where a minor character is introduced and described for
the first time comes from Akunin’s Koronatsiia:
RU ST: Трофимов, как я уже имел возможность удостовериться, был непроходимо глуп и ни на
какую иную должность кроме привратницкой не годен, но смотрелся представительно: ростом в
сажень, плечист, круглоглаз и с густой черной бородой. (BA)
NO TT: Trofimov var, slik jeg allerede hadde hatt god anledning til å overbevise meg om,
ugjennomtrengelig dum, og dugde ikke til andre beskjeftigelser enn dørvakt, men så representativ nok ut:
Han var over to meter høy, bred over skuldrene, hadde store øyne og et tett, svart skjegg.
EN TT: I had previously had occasion to note that Trofimov was quite hopelessly stupid and unfitted for
any kind of employment except minding doors, but he looked impressive: a full sazhen in height, broad
in the shoulder, with round eyes and a thick black beard.
In the Norwegian TT, we see the archaic Russian unit of length (сажень) treated with a
contemporary functional analogue (meter) which allows the target audience to envision the
actual height of the doorman. However, the English TT retains the original word which makes
the description somewhat more exotic. The meaning of the unfamiliar word is alluded to with
two details in the context: first, the overall look of the character is described as смотрелся
представительно (looked impressive in the TT), which hardly implies a short stature; second,
the loanword is preceded by full which immediately lets the reader know that a man measuring
a sazhen is by no means short in height.
Another example where the meaning of the exotic length unit is subtly suggested in the
TT by means of addition is found in the same novel:
RU ST: – Ййя! – противно крякнул азиат, и шар сорвался вперед, просвистев в нескольких
вершках надо мной. (BA)
NO TT: “Ijja!” ropte asiaten vilt, og kulen fór plystrende av sted rett over meg.
EN TT: “Iiyai!” the Oriental grunted in an appalling voice and the sphere went hurtling forward, whistling
by only a few vershoks above me.
Since the exact length is not mentioned in the ST and the unit of measurement is merely used
to indicate the proximity of the object, the Norwegian translator opts for Contextual
Substitution — rett over meg (right above me). In the English TT, however, Retention is used,
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with italics indicating the foreignness of the lexical item and the adverb only suggesting a short
distance. This sort of solution achieves two goals at once: it preserves the local/historical flavor
of the ST sentence, while at the same time it allows the target reader to infer the approximate
meaning of the unfamiliar word. Conversely, one might argue that in cases where a realia plays
a peripheral role, Retention draws too much attention to itself, thus Contextual Substitution or
Functional Substitution is sufficient.
All the three examples above (человек “ростом в сажень”, змея “в пятнадцать
аршин” and шар, пролетевший “в нескольких вершках”) are excellent illustrations of
Vlakhov and Florin’s claim that, when found in a fictional text, measurement realia serve not
so much to convey accurate information as to create a visually vivid image (Vlakhov and Florin
1986/2012: 151). However, on rare occasions, units of measurement might allude to an
interesting detail that is important for understanding a bigger picture. An episode from Medeia
i ee deti provides one such example. Here, a character confesses to certain immoral deeds in his
past — namely, he was leading a team that confiscated grain from the peasants as part of a
Bolshevik campaign during the Russian Civil War. This involved shooting anyone found
concealing grain beyond the amount that had been prescribed by the government. The character
describes a case when three peasants were to be shot for having concealed grain:
RU ST: Хлеба у них четыре пуда изъяли, а у братьев и всего-то полтора. (LUM)
NO TT: Vi hadde tatt fire pud korn fra dem, og fra brødrene hadde vi tatt bare halvannet pud.
Footnote: Pud — 16,38 kg, gammel russisk vektenhet (old Russian weight unit).
EN TT: We took away a hundredweight and a half of grain from them in total, and from the brothers a
measly half a hundredweight.
In this excerpt, it is rather important to emphasize that the amount of confiscated grain is not
particularly large (not that a larger amount would justify killing the peasants, but the small
amount accentuates just how little a human life was worth). Although there is a cue in the text
that points to a limited amount (всего-то → bare/measly), the translator might still find it
necessary to give precise information. This is done through Retention and a footnote in the
Norwegian TT. Interestingly, a footnote is not typical for this TT, as most definitions of
unfamiliar words are given in the glossary at the end of the book. The solution allows the
translator to retain the local/historical flavor of the realia and at the same time promptly give
the reader the precise information about the mass. The English translator employs the unit of
weight hundredweight that has limited use ― it is commonly used in the US in sale of cereal
grains, paper etc. but not much otherwise. Aa a result, an average US reader, despite being
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offered a more domesticating solution, might end up with a poorer understanding of the
situation compared to a Norwegian reader.
The Russian archaic unit of length верста is encountered in all the six STs examined
in my study. Therefore, it is interesting to see how it is rendered in different texts. All the
occurrences are presented in Table 21:
Table 21. Rendering of the Russian word верста in Norwegian and English TTs
BA LT MB LUM LUS MSH
NO kilometer kilometer kilometer kilometer kilometer
verst verst
verst verst verst
verst* verst*
verst* verst* verst* verst* verst* verst*
EN verst verst verst verst verst
mile verst
mile mile mile
large-scale kilometer
mile verst verst verst verst verst
Keeping in mind that the Norwegian TTs are created by only two translators (indicated here by
the light-grey and dark-grey backgrounds) while the English translations are made by different
translators, what kind of observations can we make studying this table? Of the two Norwegian
translators, Marit Bjerkeng seems to be the most consistent one when it comes to treatment of
this specific realia. In all her TTs, she renders верста with Retention coupled with Extratextual
Specification (either in a glossary or a footnote) regardless of whether the word is used in literal
or figurative sense. Dagfinn Foldøy, in turn, is always consistent throughout a single text, but
not so across different TTs: whereas in Akunin’s historical novel he converts the Russian unit
into kilometers, in the other two texts верста is retained with no specification. As far as English
translations are concerned, we can see that two of the novels retain the Russian word
consistently (verst with no specification), three translators make use of Functional and
Contextual Substitution, and in one text (Tsypkin’s Summer in Baden-Baden), both Retention
and Functional Substitution are observed. The last case deserves a closer look as it seems the
least inconsistent. In the first occurrence of верста, the distance to the station in Tver is
specified rather precisely, and the English translation stays close to the original:
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RU ST: (...) кто-то еще проезжал мимо Твери, и он опять бежал ночью на станцию, отстоявшую в
трех верстах от почтамта (...). (LT)
EN TT: (...) and then at night again over the three versts separating the station from the post-office if
someone else were passing through Tver’ (...).
In the second occurrence, however, two aspects are different: first of all, the distance is
approximated, and second, the setting is now moved to Germany where the protagonists are
traveling:
RU ST: (...) а раз она отправилась в какую-то дальнюю прогулку и, пройдя версты две или три и
поднявшись по ступеням, вышла к Старому замку (…). (LT)
EN TT: (...) and on one occasion she set off on a long walk and after a couple of miles or so climbed up
some steps and found herself in the Altes Schloss (...).
In the above example, the approximated distance and thus its minor importance for the given
context might have contributed to the choice of a domesticating translation procedure. However,
the second factor — the fact that the setting is now moved to Baden-Baden — could have been
decisive: verst could have sounded out of place in the German setting. That said, the
inconsistency discussed above may also be due to the translator’s inadvertence.
Another observation one can make looking at Table 21 is that Bjerkeng is the only
translator who offers an extratextual explanation of the retained realia and does so in all of the
three texts included in my study. Despite the fact that verst can be found in both Norwegian
and English monolingual dictionaries,59 the word is arguably unfamiliar to the majority of
Norwegian- and English-speaking readers. Thus, it is remarkable that the translators who chose
Retention decided against giving additional information to their readers.
In general, if we compare the descriptive statistics for the Norwegian and English data,
the results for the two data subsets are identical.
Table 22. Rendering of the Russian units of measurement in the English and Norwegian TTs
Norwegian English
Median = 2
Mode = 2
Total = 36
Median = 2
Mode = 2
Total = 39
59 See https://www.oxforddictionaries.com/: verst ― a Russian measure of length, about 1.1 km (0.66 mile), and http://ordbok.uib.no/: verst ― (russisk versta) eldre russisk lengdemål, 1 verst er 1066,77 m.
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Table 22 shows that the medians and modes are identical for the English and Norwegian TTs.
The mode coincides with the median and equals 2, which means that the most typical procedure
used to render the measurement realia is Functional Substitution, according to my model.
However, from these results we cannot learn which of its two subtypes — archaic or
contemporary substitution — is dominating, since I did not treat them as separate translation
procedures. Another fact worth mentioning is that units of measurement are treated with a very
few procedures: in the English TTs these are Retention, Functional Substitution and Contextual
Substitution and in the Norwegian TTs — the same plus Retention with Extratextual
Specification. This limited variety is to be expected as measurement realia do not lend
themselves to be treated with calques, intratextual specification or various kinds of paraphrase.
Omission is certainly possible but is not encountered in my data.
6.2.16 Translation procedures for rendering ethnographic realia — Summary
The large category of ethnographic realia comprises a total of 633 tokens for the Norwegian
TTs and 630 tokens for the English TTs. The calculations performed for the data from this
category yield the following results:
Table 23. Rendering of the Russian ethnographic realia in the English and Norwegian TTs
Norwegian English
Median = 4
Mode = 4
Total = 633
D = 74%
F = 26%
Median = 4
Mode = 2
Total = 630
D = 72%
F = 28%
As evident from Table 23, the medians are the same, and the Mann–Whitney U test reveals no
significant difference between the two subsets of data at the 0.05 significance level
(p-value=0.2374). The percentages of domestication and foreignization solutions are very
similar, and, as was expected, the domestication shifts dominate by a significant margin. Mode
4 corresponds to Explicitation by Short Paraphrase, and mode 2 — Functional Substitution,
according to my model. The three most commonly used translation procedures in the English
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and Norwegian translations are Explicitation by Short Paraphrase, Explicitation by Hypernym
and Functional Substitution, and the frequency numbers for these translation shifts are very
similar across the compared samples. An interesting difference is observed in the frequency of
Retention proper: 100 occurrences in English vs. 64 occurrences in Norwegian. This is
explained by the fact that the Norwegian translators use Retention with Extratextual
Specification more often: 1 occurrence in English vs. 27 occurrences in Norwegian.
None of the thematic groups in the ethnographic category demonstrated a significant
difference between the two samples. However, some categories have a 1-point difference in the
medians. The group of realia treated with the most foreignizing solutions proved to be realia
denoting ethnic groups — the median equals 12 in the English translations and 11 in the
Norwegian ones. This was to be expected, as the names of ethnic groups are rendered in much
the same way as proper nouns, and the difference between the two data subsets is merely due
to the English translators avoiding using Retention with Specification for these realia. The
group treated with the most domesticating solutions is realia denoting units of measurement —
both medians equal 2 in the TTs, which corresponds to Functional Substitution.
6.3 Translation of socio-political realia 6.3.1 Realia denoting administrative divisions
This group covers realia denoting administrative divisions (область, уезд, губерния, край,
волость), types of settlements (аул, станица) and parts of settlements (проспект, околоток).
A number of realia from this group are closely linked with toponyms and can often be regarded
as part of them: Звенигородский уезд, Рязанская губерния, etc.
Discussing translators’ reasons for choosing specific translation procedures, Vlakhov
and Florin point out that in some cases the choice is motivated by the mere “power of tradition”
(Vlakhov and Florin 1986/2012: 101). One type of realia this tendency concerns to a large
extent is, according to the scholars, the names of administrative divisions and types of
settlements. Evidence for this can be found in my data. For instance, there is no particular reason
why Russian проспект should be rendered as prospekt or Prospect/Prospekt and not vei/allé
or avenue in Norwegian and English. Yet each time this word occurs in my data, it is treated
with Retention (e.g. Вознесенский проспект → Voznesenskij prospekt / Voznesensky
Prospect). This may have to do with the aforementioned link to toponyms: once entrenched in
a specific form, toponyms become very difficult to change. Another example where the
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tradition for a certain translation solution is readily observed is in the treatment of the main
administrative division in pre-revolutionary Russia — губерния:
RU ST: У их дяди имение в Екатеринославской губернии. (MS)
NO TT: De har en onkel som eier et gods i Jekaterinoslav-guvernementet.
EN TT: Their uncle has an estate in Ekaterinoslav Province.
All of the 14 occurrences of губерния and губернский included in my data have consistent
rendering — guvernement in Norwegian and Province in English. Despite having the same
French and ultimately Latin origin as Russian губерния, Norwegian guvernement cannot be
regarded as Retention in translations from Russian. Rather, it may be qualified as Explicitation
by Hypernym, according to my classification, because the meaning of the Norwegian word
seems to be broader than that of the Russian word. While губерния designates the main
administrative unit in Russia since early 18th century and in the USSR until 1929, 60
guvernement is defined as follows: “om utenlandske forhold: administrativt område som blir
styrt av en guvernør”61 (on foreign affairs: administrative area governed by a governor), which
means that it is not restricted to a particular country. The English province may also be viewed
as Explicitation by Hypernym. In general, it is difficult to establish hierarchical semantic
relations between the SL and TL lexical items of this thematic group — whether a solution is a
hypernym or a functional analogue — because while the names of local administrative units
are strictly regulated and form a rather stable coherent system in the SL, translation solutions
rendering these realia do not originate in a single system.
One clear case of Functional Substitution is found in Ulitskaia’s Sonechka where the
main character working in a library has difficulty registering a client because the official
residency stamp in his documents shows he is not a permanent resident of the city:
RU ST: – Нет, не могу. Вы же областной… (LUS)
NO TT: – Nei, det går ikke. De er jo bare registrert på fylket…
EN TT: – “No, I’m sorry. You live outside the city limits.”
Here the Russian realia область is replaced with a distinctly Norwegian administrative unit —
fylke, which may sound a little odd in the Soviet Union setting. The English TT offers a more
60 Bol’shoi tolkovyi slovar’ russkogo iazyka (Kuznetsov 2014) 61 https://ordbok.uib.no/
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oblique Contextual Substitution that explicates the pragmatic meaning of the original
expression.
One distinctive feature of the translation solutions for administrative realia is that the
same words render a wide variety of the SL realia. Norwegian distrikt is used to translate
волость, уезд, край, область, околоток and район, while English district — волость, уезд
край. English province is used to render губерния, уезд, область. This tendency can be
explained by the inevitably limited choice of translation procedures available to translators
when conveying realia denoting administrative units. On the one hand, descriptive solutions,
e.g. Explicitation by Paraphrase, are not typical (уезд is unlikely to be rendered as “part of a
province”). On the other hand, Retention, with or without extratextual specification, is not
strongly supported by the translation traditions with regard to this type of Russian realia: neither
guberniia, nor uezd are frequently encountered in translations. Moreover, Functional
Substitution cannot be easily employed: fylke, commune (NO), county (EN) etc. are not easy to
incorporate into narratives with Russian/Soviet setting because these words are too country-
specific. Thus, translators select two-three words with a broad meaning and use them for all
purposes.
The only type of realia from this group that was found to be treated with Retention was
the names of various settlements of ethnic minorities. Below is one example:
RU ST: Снегопад перекрыл дороги в горах, и до отдаленного аула в Галанчожском районе (...)
солдаты добирались по засыпанной снегом тропе с проводником из местного партактива. (MS)
NO TT: Snøfallet hadde stengt alle veiene i fjellene, og soldatene måtte gå langs en sti i dyp snø for å
komme til den fjerne fjelllandsbyen i Galantsjozj-distriktet (...), og de hadde en fører som var lokal
partiaktivist.
EN TT: The snowfall had cut off the roads in the mountains, and the soldiers reached the last aul, in
Galanchozh District (...) over a snow-strewn path, with a guide who was a local Party activist.
The Chechen village аул is rendered with Explicitation by Short Paraphrase in Norwegian —
fjelllandsby (mountain village) and with Retention proper in English. The English treatment
has a foreignizing effect and signals that the settlement is rather exotic in a Russian setting. It
is interesting to compare this example with станица found in the same novel:
RU ST: Древняя Греция оказывается совсем рядом — город Танаис, основанный греческими
колонистами из Керчи, лежит рядом с Доном, в Елизаветовской станице. (MS)
NO TT: Det gamle Grekenland ligger jo like i nærheten — byen Tanais, som ble grunnlagt av greske
kolonister fra Kertsj, ligger rett ved Don, i kosakklandsbyen Jelizavetskaja.
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EN TT: Ancient Greece turns out to be quite nearby. Tanais, founded by Greek colonists from Kerch, lies
next to the Don, in the village of Elizavetovskaya.
Unlike the previous example with aul, here the settlement term is treated with a generic word
village in the English TT, which can be an indication of the translator viewing this realia as
“internal”, i.e. local Russian, and seeing no need to foreignize it. The Norwegian solution is
more specific — kosakklandsby (Cossack village), and in this respect it is very similar to the
solution for aul — fjelllandsby. In other words, whereas the English translator seems to regard
these two realia, аул and станица, as different in terms of exoticism, the Norwegian translator
does not.
The last example aims to illustrate how a small misinterpretation of an exotic realia may
change the meaning of a scene:
RU ST: На их земли давно положили глаз крестьяне из русских сел, поэтому и поддержали
большевиков и уничтожали калмыков, вырезали целые деревни, которые там называются хотоны.
Убивали всех, кто не успел убежать. Кажется, Большой Дербетовский улус, не помню точно. (MS)
NO TT: Bøndene fra de russiske landsbyene hadde for lenge siden vist interesse for deres jordområder,
og av den grunn støttet de bolsjevikene og tilintetgjorde kalmykkene, hele landsbyer, khotoner, som det
heter der, ble slaktet ned. De drepte alle som ikke rakk å komme seg unna. Jeg tror landsbyen het Bolsjoj
Debetov ulus, jeg husker ikke så nøye.
EN TT: Peasants from Russian villages had had their eye on that land for a long time, which is why they
supported the Bolsheviks and wiped out the Kalmyks, slaughtered entire villages, which they call khotons.
They killed everyone who didn’t manage to run away. I think it was the settlement at Bolshoi
Derbetovsky, I don’t remember exactly.
The excerpt features two Kalmyk realia — хотоны and улус. The first one is treated with
Retention with no further specification in both TTs (khotoner and khotons). The translators
probably do not see any need for additional specification in this case, since the meaning of the
word is already explained in the original text: хотон is a Kalmyk village. However, the English
translator uses italics to emphasize the exotic lexical item. The translation solutions for the
other realia, улус, are a little more controversial. In the Norwegian TT, one finds Retention
with an Intratextual Short Specification — landsbyen ulus (village ulus). The English translator
opts for Explicitation — settlement, although, strictly speaking, it seems to refer not to улус,
but to a place in it, while улус is omitted (the settlement at Bolshoi Derbetovsky). Both solutions
appear satisfactory at first glance, until one recognizes that the translators must have
misinterpreted улус: the TTs first refer to landsbyer/villages (plural) indicating that the attacks
on Kalmyks occurred in several places; and next moment they mention one specific
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village/settlement which is called Bolsjoj Derbetov ulus in Norwegian or described as located
at Bolshoi Derbetovsky in English. The confusion is easily resolved if one knows that улус was
an administrative division in Kalmykia and referred to a large region with many villages.62
Thus, attacks did in fact take place in many villages, and all of this was happening within
Bolshederbetovskii ulus, not in one specific village/settlement. The example demonstrates,
among other things, how difficult it may be for a researcher to evaluate a translation procedure:
can the Norwegian treatment of улус still be viewed as Retention with an Intratextual Short
Specification if the specification is erroneous? Was English settlement meant to replace улус
or is улус simply omitted here?
A comparative statistical analysis for this group of realia is provided below:
Table 24. Rendering of the Russian realia denoting administrative divisions and settlements in
the English and Norwegian TTs
Norwegian English
Median = 3
Mode = 2
Total = 52
Median = 3
Mode = 3
Total = 52
As evident from the Table 24, the results are once again very comparable: the medians are the
same, and the Mann–Whitney U test confirms that the difference between the compared data
sets is not significant. The mode 3 for the English TTs indicates that the most frequent
translation procedure used to treat this type of realia is Explicitation by Hypernym, and the
mode 2 for the Norwegian TTs corresponds to Functional Substitution. A few more
observations may be mentioned. In my dataset, it is uncommon for administrative units to be
rendered with Retention unless these are perceived as “external” realia by the translators: ulus,
aul. The only exception is проспект which is most likely treated with Retention according to
a translation tradition. Loan Translation, Extended Paraphrase and Contextual Substitution are
not typical due to the nature of these realia. Extratextual comments explaining Retention were
not found for this sort of realia.
62 Novyi slovar’ russkogo iazyka (Efremova 2000)
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6.3.2 Realia denoting social and political phenomena This group covers realia referring to historical events, political and social movements and their
participants, as well as various social phenomena and policies: коллективизация, военный
коммунизм, нэп, оттепель, опричник, декабрист, западник, славянофил, махновцы,
самиздат, etc.
The following example featuring an acronym shows a small difference in the translation
solutions:
RU ST: Выдыхался нэп. (LUS)
NO TT: Den nye økonomiske politikken, NEP, var i ferd med å utånde.
EN TT: It was the late 1920’s and Lenin’s laissez-faire New Economic Policy was on its last legs.
In the above example, the Norwegian translator preserves the original acronym and spells it out.
In the English TT, the acronym is eliminated but spelled out, and in addition to that a detailed
specification is incorporated in the sentence. Thus, the English solutions is somewhat more
domesticating than the Norwegian one. However, both utterances lose the ST laconism and
hence the original prosody.
In the below example, it is the Norwegian TT that has a full-fledged specification while
the English solution is limited to Retention proper:
RU ST: Его бывшая одноклассница Люда Линдер, любительница неофициальной поэзии, изредка
таскала его в квартиры и литературные клубы, где процветал самиздат и даже заезжий Бродский
не брезговал иногда читать свои ставшие со временем нобелевскими стихи. (LUM)
NO TT: En jente som hadde gått i klasse med ham, Ljuda Linder, var tilhenger av uoffisiell poesi og dro
ham av og til med til leiligheter og litteraturklubber der “samizdat”, den illegale litteraturen, blomstret,
og der de faktisk kunne oppleve at Brodskij, når han var i byen, gjerne leste sine dikt, som han med tid og
stunder skulle få Nobelprisen for.
Translator’s endnote: samizdat — (“selvutgitt”) betegnelsen for illegal litteratur i Sovjetunionen;
distribuert i avskrifter (“self-published”, the term for illegal literature in the Soviet Union; distributed in
transcripts).
EN TT: His former classmate Lyuda Linder, a lover of unofficial poetry, occasionally dragged him to
apartments and literary clubs where samizdat flourished and where even Brodsky, when he was in
Moscow, sometimes did not disdain to recite the poetry which in the fullness of time was to earn him the
Nobel Prize.
In the Norwegian TT, the word samizdat is used in quotes signaling its foreign origin. Further,
it is given a concise specification in the main text of the novel — den illegale litteraturen (the
illegal literature). Finally, an endnote offers a close translation of the term — selvutgitt (self-
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published) and a more detailed explanation of the phenomenon. By contrast, the English
translator renders the realia with Retention proper, with no italics or quotation marks, perhaps
expecting the TT readers to be familiar with the term.
Occasionally, the reason why a term receives different interpretation in the TTs seems
to be the vagueness of its original meaning:
RU ST: Теперь она заведовала маленьким закрытым ателье для правительственных дам. Место
было блатное, но у Александры от прежних лет остались какие-то покровители. (LUM)
NO TT: Isteden ble hun leder for et lite, lukket sømatelier der konene til landets ledende menn var kunder.
Hun fikk stillingen gjennom bekjentskaper, for Aleksandra hadde fremdeles igjen en og annen beskytter
fra tidligere tider.
EN TT: Now she was managing a small private atelier which dressed the government’s wives. It was an
illegal business activity, but Alexandra still had certain backers from her earlier years.
Блатной comes from the word блат which may refer to acquaintance, social network,
allowing one to achieve something bypassing existing rules or it may refer to such method of
obtaining something.63 However, блатной may also be related to criminal communities. In the
Norwegian TT, блатной is interpreted as a light form of corruption — it describes a job that
has been received through connections. The English translator, on the other hand, seems to
interpret the word as relating to some criminal activity. The latter interpretation is highly
dubious, however, because it is specified in the text that the character works at a tailor’s shop
with wives of public officials as its main clients.
The translation solutions for this group of realia include calques, which can be difficult
to understand without cultural/historical commentary. Here is one such example:
RU ST: Персиков оставшиеся 20 экземпляров квакш попробовал перевести на питание тараканами,
но и тараканы куда-то провалились, показав свое злостное отношение к военному коммунизму.
(MB)
NO TT: De 20 eksemplarene frosker som Persikov satt igjen med, prøvde han så å sette over på
kakerlakkdiett, men selv kakerlakkene forduftet et eller annet steds hen og fikk slik vist sin fiendtlige
holdning til krigskommunismen.
EN TT: (...) and Persikov tried to shift the twenty surviving specimens of tree-frogs onto a diet of
cockroaches, but then the cockroaches disappeared too, thereby demonstrating their hostile attitude to
war communism.
63 Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’ istorii sovetskoi povsednevnoi zhizni (Belovinskii 2015).
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The narrator in Rokovye iaitsa describes animals dying of starvation in a research laboratory.
Professor Persikov tries to feed his frogs with cockroaches instead of mealworms, but even the
resilient cockroaches disappear. This description is a satire on военный коммунизм — the
economic and political system during the Russian Civil War which resulted, among other things,
in famine and the rationing of food. Although Loan Translation in both TTs translates the ST
expression very closely, it does not convey what the policy involved. As a result, there is a risk
of the irony being lost on the reader.
Another example where a historical commentary would have contributed to a better
understanding of the TT:
RU ST: – А что думать? – удивился он. – Сегодня у нас коллективизация, завтра еще что-нибудь
будет. Жизнь, конечно, делается все лучше, но я думаю, что вдвоем нам эту хорошую жизнь будет
легче переносить. Вы меня понимаете? (LUM)
NO TT: “Tenke på det? Hvordan det?” Han ble forbauset. “I dag har vi kollektiviseringen, i morgen
dukker det opp noe annet. Livet blir selvfølgelig bare bedre, men jeg tror at det vil bli lettere for oss å
holde ut det gode livet som kommer, hvis vi er to. Om De forstår meg rett?”
EN TT: “What is there to think about?” he asked in surprise. “Today we have collectivization of
agriculture, tomorrow there will be something else. Of course, life is just getting better all the time, but
I think we shall find it easier to get through this wonderful life together, if you see what I mean.”
In this excerpt from Medeia i ee deti, Medea’s future husband proposes to her, and she is
reluctant to say yes. He tries to convince her by hinting at the unstable political and economic
situation in the country where the government may come up with new tough policies any day.
He suggests that it would be easier for them to handle the difficult times together; переносить
хорошую жизнь is clearly meant ironically. In this context, it would be useful for the readers
to have an idea what коллективизация was like for peasants and why many people were not
happy with the policy. A calque with no specification, like the Norwegian kollektiviseringen,
does not reveal much about the phenomenon. The English short specification following the
calque — collectivization of agriculture — merely indicates that the policy concerned the
agricultural sector.
Below is another example where Loan Translation does not help the TT readers to
comprehend the phenomenon that the ST refers to:
RU ST: (...) я читал с бьющимся сердцем, надеясь найти хоть какой-нибудь просвет в этих
рассуждениях, которые можно было услышать от любого черносотенца, хоть какой-нибудь
поворот в иную сторону, хоть какую-нибудь попытку посмотреть на всю проблему новым
взглядом (...). (LT)
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NO TT: (...) jeg leste med bankende hjerte idet jeg håpet på i det minste en lysning i disse overlegningene,
som man ellers kunne høre hos ethvert medlem av de Svarte Hundre, om det så bare var en vending i
en annen retning, om så bare et slags forsøk på å se på problemet med nytt blikk (...).
EN TT: (...) and I read all this with a pounding heart, hoping to discover in these arguments, which you
might have expected to hear from some member of the Black Hundreds, at least some ray of hope, at
least some movement in the other direction, at least some effort to view the whole problem from a new
angle (...).
This excerpt is from Tsypkin’s novel Leto v Badene. The narrator is reading Dostoevsky’s
article “The Jewish Question” and becomes deeply disappointed by its cliché anti-semitic
arguments. He finds Dostoevsky’s attitude to the Jews similar to anti-semitism typical of
черносотенцы — members of the ultranationalist movement in Russia in 1905–1917. As this
movement neither was known in Dostoevsky’s time nor survived into the narrator’s time, the
comparison of Dostoevsky’s article with ideas of черносотенцы is not literal. In other words,
the narrator mentions them as a typical example of an extremely xenophobic, intellectually
unsophisticated community. These connotations are hardly possible to convey through Loan
Translation.
There are, however, a few Norwegian examples where Loan Translation is
supplemented by an extratextual explanation. One such example is found in Medeia i ee deti:
RU ST: Самиздат уже совершал тайное бурение почвы, Синявский и Даниэль уже были осуждены,
“физики” отделились от “лириков”, а запретная зона не покрывала разве что зоопарки. (LUM)
NO TT: “Samizdat” hadde pløyd opp og beredt grunnen, Sinjavskij og Daniel var allerede blitt dømt,
“fysikerne” hadde tatt avstand fra “lyrikerne”, og kanskje var det bare dyrehager som ikke hadde noen
forbudssoner.
Translator’s endnote: fysikerne og lyrikerne — henspiller på et dikt av den russiske dikteren Boris
Slutskij (1919–86) fra 1960 (refers to a poem by the Russian poet Boris Slutsky from 1960).
EN TT: Samizdat was already covertly undermining the System, Sinyavsky and Daniel had been found
guilty of publishing their works abroad, “physicists” were distancing themselves from “lyricists”, and
the only areas which were off limits were to be found in the zoo.
While the English solutions for “физики” and “лирики” features only Loan Translation, the
Norwegian TT also includes an endnote. However, this endnote merely explains the origin of
the opposition — a specific poem — without commenting on the debate it sparked off. The
1960 poem points out that “physicists” are gaining a more privileged position in the Soviet
society compared to “lyricists”. After its publication, a heated debate unfolded about whom the
society required more — “physicists” (referring to people involved in the natural sciences) or
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“lyricists” (those in the humanities).64 Rather than Slutsky’s poem, it is the debate it gave rise
to that is alluded to in the above excerpt.
Below is an example involving a name of a historical period rendered in different ways
in the TTs:
RU ST: – Дело в том, Зюкин, что вокруг Новодевичьего монастыря еще со Смутных
времен вся земля изрыта подземными лазами. (BA)
NO TT: “Saken er den, Zjukin, at rundt Novodevitsjij-klosteret har grunnen vært gjennomboret av
underjordiske ganger siden det sekstende århundre.”
EN TT: “The point is, Ziukin, that since the Time of Troubles all the ground around the Novodevichy
Convent has been riddled with underground passages.”
The English TT translates the original term rather closely, while the Norwegian TT omits the
name of the historical period and instead explicates the reference to the 16th century. In the
given context, the specific time period may be perceived as most relevant, because it seems
important to highlight that the underground passages have been around for a long time. A
similar example where the name of a historical event is replaced with a more generic temporal
paraphrase is found in the English translation of Leto v Badene: инвалиды Отечественной
войны → soldiers disabled in the last war. Here, too, the specific name of the event is not
considered relevant by the translator.
The second time Смутное время (or, rather, годы смуты) occurs in the novel, it is
treated with Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification in Norwegian — den urolige tiden
på 1600-tallet (the troubled era of the 17th century) — although in this case nothing indicates
that it is a name of a historical period and may be interpreted as the narrator’s own description
of the epoch. Other examples involving Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification are:
переселение народов → Stalin’s migrations of the peoples; оттепель → political thaw,
tøværsperioden (specification is underlined).
The following example is another interesting illustration of different approaches to a
realia adopted by two different translators:
RU ST: Павел тут успел в паузе, пока спорщики прихлебывали чай, вставить, что в русской
истории было только два рыцарства — орден кромешников при Иване Грозном и
кратковременное командорство Павла над мальтийцами. (MS)
64 Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’ krylatykh slov i vyrazhenii (Serov 2003).
233
NO TT: Akkurat da, mens de andre hissigproppene slurpet i seg litt te og det ble en liten pause, rakk
Pavel å skyte inn at det bare har vært to tilfeller av riddervesen i russisk historie — sikkerhetstjenesten
til Ivan den grusomme og den kortvarige kommandoen tsar Pavel hadde over malteserne.
EN TT: Pavel managed during the pause, while the debaters were sipping their tea, to interject that there
were only two chivalries in Russian history: the Oprichniki under Ivan the Terrible, and Pavel’s short-
lived command over the Maltans.
The English TT features what was referred to as Near Retention in Section 6.2.5 — that is,
instead of retaining the ST realia, the TT replaces it with a synonym which is presumably more
familiar to the TT audience (the Oprichniki). The Norwegian translator opts for Functional
Substitution — sikkerhetstjeneste (security agency) and relies on the context for reference to
the relevant historical period (при Иване Грозном → til Ivan den grusomme).
A summary of statistical calculations for this group of realia is provided in Table 25.
Table 25. Rendering of the Russian realia referring to socio-political phenomena and historical
events in the English and Norwegian TTs
Norwegian English
Median = 8
Mode = 8
Total = 42
Median = 8
Mode = 8
Total = 42
The calculations reveal identical results for the English and Norwegian TTs. The medians and
modes are equal to 8, which corresponds to Loan Translation in my model. This indicates that
the dominant tendency in the treatment of the discussed realia is rather foreignizing.
6.3.3 Realia denoting institutions
This group includes realia referring to professional, commercial, social organizations: ЗАГС,
богадельня, долговая тюрьма, колхоз, артель, комиссионка, НКВД, Синод, Моссовет,
Наркомздрав, etc. The category is special in that the lexical items comprising it often refer to
unique entities rather than a class of objects, thus their names may be regarded as proper nouns:
Временное правительство, Государственная Дума, ВЛКСМ, ВТО, музей творчества
крепостных, etc. I have decided to include such lexis into my study because, unlike typonyms
and anthroponyms, these are semantically motivated lexical items, i.e. their meaning could be
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inferred from the words they consist of. This makes a variety of translation solutions possible —
from the most domesticating to the most foreignizing ones.
There are quite many acronyms and abbreviations in this group. Occasionally these are
retained: FSB, NKVD, kolkhoz. However, in most cases, they are explicated, that is, rendered
with Loan Translation of the full name of an institution, such as in the example below:
RU ST: (...) они стояли, вытянув вперед и чуть вверх руки, удерживающие древко флага, чем-то
напоминая собой скульптурную группу, установленную перед входом на ВДНХ (...). (LT)
NO TT: (...) de sto og holdt flagget med hendene strukket frem og noe opp, og minnet litt om
skulpturgruppen som er plassert foran inngangen til “Den permanente landsutstilling over
næringslivets resultater i Sovjetunionen” (...).
EN TT: (...) and there they stood, arms thrust forward and upward, gripping the flag-staff, vaguely
resembling the sculptured figures in front of the entrance to the Exhibition of Economic Achievements
in Moscow (...).
The acronym ВДНХ (Выставка достижений народного хозяйства) is rendered with Loan
Translation in both TTs. However, the Norwegian translation solution also involves several
additions — den permanent landsutstilling specifies that the exhibition is permanent and that
it has nationwide scope, while i Sovjetunionen indicates its Soviet origin. Moreover, the
quotations marks have a foreignizing effect. The English solution, on the other hand, highlights
the location of the exhibition — in Moscow. Although these additions communicate relevant
information, the resulting translation solutions for the ST acronym become even more
cumbersome than they could have been with a close calque.
In the example below, the acronym, on the contrary, is explicated only partially:
RU ST: Один раз он покинул зоологическое прибежище, чтобы в громадном зале
Цекубу на Пречистенке сделать доклад о своем луче и о действии его на яйцеклетку. (MB)
NO TT: En eneste gang forlot han sitt zoologiske tilfluktssted for å holde en forelesning i
Sentralkomitéens enorme sal i Pretsjistenka om strålen sin og dens virkning på eggceller.
EN TT: Once he abandoned his zoological refuge to read a paper on his ray and its action on the ovule in
the huge hall of the Central Commission for Improving the Living Conditions of Scientists in
Prechistenka.
In this excerpt, the main protagonist of Bulgakov’s novella, Professor Persikov, is presenting
a paper on his invention. He is doing this at a location belonging to Цекубу (Центральная
комиссия по улучшению жизни ученых). The Norwegian and English translators do not
include the full name of the organization in their texts, reducing it to Sentralkomitéen and
Central Commission. These renderings may evoke associations with ЦК (Центральный
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комитет) — the main government authority in the Soviet Union — which can make the
whole event seem far more important than it is in the ST.
The following example is noteworthy in that the TT interpretations of the abbreviation
are questionable:
RU ST: От Москвы странное впечатление — жизнь становится лучше, и это чувствуется
буквально: отменили карточки, закрыли унизительные торгсины, куда люди несли свои зубы,
продуктов в изобилии и становится все больше, театры, кино — битком. Но все остальное
осталось — люди-то те же! (MS)
NO TT: Jeg fikk et merkelig inntrykk av Moskva nu — det er blitt lettere å leve, og det merkes helt
bokstavelig: Det er slutt på rasjoneringskortene, de har stengt de ydmykende Handelssyndikatene, dit
folk kom med gulltennene sine, vareutvalget er stort og det blir stadig bedre, det er teatre og kinoer i
fleng. Ellers er alt som før — menneskene er de samme!
EN TT: Moscow left a strange impression: life is getting better, and you can feel it literally. They’ve
canceled ration cards, closed the humiliating trade syndicates, where people brought their teeth, there’s
plenty of food, more and more even, and the theaters and cinemas are packed. But everything else is as
before. People are the same!
In the TTs, the abbreviation торгсин is spelled out in the same way — as Handelssyndikatene
and trade syndicates. In reality, the more correct interpretation of торгсин is Всесоюзное
объединение по торговле с иностранцами (Belovinskii 2015, Kuznetsov 2014), but even
the native speakers of Russian may interpret this term as торговый синдикат. Торгсин was
a colloquial name for special shops in the 1930s where people could buy groceries, clothes and
other goods for foreign exchange assets such as precious metals and stones, antiques and
foreign currency. Often, people would bring the last valuables they owned in exchange for the
most basic products. Note, incidentally, the Norwegian specification of зубы — gulltennene
(golden teeth). It is no surprise then that the protagonist finds this shopping arrangement
humiliating. All these nuances about the old Soviet phenomenon of торгсин are unfamiliar to
both the TT readers and the majority of the ST readers likewise.
In the following example, the acronym is not spelled out, but is rendered with
Functional Substitution:
RU ST: Описывая свадьбу дочери, Леночка подробнейшим образом описывает необыкновенно
бурный дождь, выпавший только в одном районе города в то самое время, когда молодожены
выходили из ЗАГСа (…). (LUM)
NO TT: Da Lenotsjka fortalte om datterens bryllup, hadde hun brukt masse detaljer i beskrivelsen av det
ualminnelig voldsomme regnet som hadde falt den dagen bare i ett strøk av byen, akkurat i det øyeblikket
da de nygifte kom ut fra vielseskontoret (…).
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EN TT: Describing her daughter’s wedding, Elena wrote in immense detail about the unusually heavy
rain which fell in only one district of the city at just the moment when the newlyweds were coming out
of the Registry Office (…).
ЗАГС (орган записи актов гражданского состояния) refers to an institution which deals
with registration of births, marriages, divorces and deaths. In colloquial Russian, ЗАГС became
almost synonymous with marriage, as the official part of weddings always takes place in ЗАГС.
The excerpt above features newlyweds, therefore the Norwegian translation solution brings
wedding into focus — vielseskontor (wedding office). This can be classified as Functional
Substitution, although the compound is only encountered in Danish. Registry Office is a more
generic term compared to vielseskontor and refers to a British government office where births,
deaths and marriages are registered. In its tasks, it is very similar to Soviet/Russian ЗАГС and
is a suitable functional analogue.
Occasionally an acronym receives a very thorough rendering:
RU ST: Предложили сначала идти в ЦСКА, сработал его первый разряд по гимнастике, но он, к
большому изумлению военкома, отказался. (LUM)
NO TT: Han fikk tilbud om å gå inn i TsSKA — hærens prestisjefylte sportsklubb, det betydde noe at
han var idrettsmann av første klasse, men til sesjonskommisjonens store overraskelse avslo han dette.
Translator’s endnote: TsSKA — hærens sportsklubb (Tsentralnyj sportivnyj klub armii), prestisjefylt
sportsklubb (army sport club, prestigious sport club).
EN TT: He was first invited to enroll in the Central Army Sports Club, his top-grade certificate in
gymnastics having made a suitable impression, but to the amazement of the enlistment office he turned
the offer down.
The Norwegian TT above not only retains the original acronym, but also spells it out in the
main text (with the exception of one word — центральный). In addition to that, specification
prestisjefylt (prestigious) makes the relevant connotation explicit and clarifies why it was very
surprising that the character denied. Moreover, in the endnotes, the acronym is explained one
more time. The next time the word occurs, it is treated with Retention proper in the Norwegian
translation — TsSKA.
The two Soviet realia, колхоз and совхоз, are also abbreviations and not rendered in a
consistent way in the selected TTs.
RU ST: Людей собирали в колхозной конюшне. (MS)
NO TT: Folkene ble samlet i kolkhos-stallen.
EN TT: The people were assembled in the kolkhoz stable.
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While in the translations of Venerin volos, the word колхоз is rendered as kolkhos and kolkhoz
(note the hyphen in the Norwegian compound), in Medeia i ee deti the same realia is treated
with Loan Translation — kollektivbruk and collective farm.
When it comes to совхоз, there is a significant variety in translation solutions. It is
treated with Retention — sovkhos (NO), with Loan Translation — Soviet farm (EN), with
Explicitation by Short Paraphrase — state farm (EN), statsbruk (NO), Explicitation by
Hypernym — farm (EN), bruk (NO) and, finally, as a calque of its synonym колхоз —
kollektivbruk (NO). It is noteworthy that in Medeia i ee deti, the Norwegian translator retains
the original realia when it is encountered for the first time, but opts for Explicitation the next
time:
RU ST: Он любовался этой землей, ее выветренными горами и сглаженными предгорьями, она
была скифская, греческая, татарская и хотя теперь стала совхозной и давно тосковала без
человеческой любви и медленно вымирала от бездарности хозяев (...). (LUM)
NO TT: Han nøt synet av denne jorden, de vindblåste fjellene og de slake skråningene under — og selv
om den nå tilhørte et statsbruk og i lang tid hadde vansmektet av mangel på menneskers kjærlighet, selv
om den var i ferd med å dø under sine herrers ukyndige behandling (...).
The character gazes sadly at the Crimean land — it has been under the rule of different
kingdoms but has never been as neglected as under the Soviet rule. In this context, it seems
important to highlight the fact the совхоз is a state-owned farm, hence the translation solution
statsbruk (state farm) instead of Retention sovkhos.
Occasionally, when a historical realia occurs in the novel, the translator might make the
relevant epoch explicit: for instance, on one occasion in the English TT Государственная
Дума is rendered as pre-revolutionary Russian Duma in order to preclude confusion with the
State Duma which replaces the Supreme Soviet in 1993. Consider also the following example:
RU ST: (...) а потомки их либо были выселены, либо сделались чиновниками, сначала в управе, а
потом в райсовете, то есть стали заниматься другими видами бандитизма. (LUM)
NO TT: (...) og etterkommerne deres var enten blitt deportert, eller de var blitt offentlige tjenestemenn,
først i kommunestyrene i tsartiden, deretter i regionsovjetet, det vil si at de gikk over til å drive med
andre typer bandittvirksomhet.
EN TT: (...) and their descendants had either been deported or become bureaucrats, first in the old tsarist
council, then in the district soviet, exchanging one form of criminality for another.
In the Russian Empire, управа referred to an institution dealing with certain administrative and
economic affairs. In the sentence above, it is contrasted with a Soviet public authority —
райсовет. As the implied meaning of this excerpt is that these people would adapt to any kind
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of regime change and still be in power, it is important to highlight that управа refers to a pre-
revolutionary institution. Both translators do precisely this through Explicitation by Extended
Paraphrase — kommunestyrene i tsartiden (municipal councils during the czarist rule) and old
tsarist council.
Since a large number of names of institutions consist of more than one word, the most
typical translation procedure applied to this class of realia is Loan Translation. Here are some
examples from the selected novels:
научно-тюремные лаборатории → vitenskapelig fengselslaboratorier (NO), penal scientific
laboratories (EN);
Народный дом → Folkets hus (NO) People’s House (EN);
Наркомздрав → Folkekomissariatet for helse (NO), Commissariat of Health (EN);
долговая тюрьма → gjeldsfensgel (NO), debtors’ prison (EN);
Совет народных комиссаров → Folkekommissærens råd (NO), Council of People’s Commissars (EN);
пионерский лагерь → pionerleir (NO);
Госиздат → Statsforlaget (NO), State Publishing House (EN);
комиссионка → kommisjonssjappen (NO);
ВТО → All-Russian Theatre Society (EN).
Sometimes the calques are transparent enough to be understood by the TT readers, other times
the context helps to infer their meaning. It occurs, however, that a calque remains rather
obscure:
RU ST: – Как он не понимает, — сокрушалась Леночка, — отец мой был членом Крымского
правительства, и об этом ни в одной анкете не сказано. А чем выше поднимаешься, тем больше
на виду… (LUM)
NO TT: “Hvordan kan det ha seg at han ikke forstår det,” gremmet Lenotsjka seg, “min far var medlem
av Krim-regjeringen, og det står ikke et ord om det i noen av skjemaene han har fylt ut. Og jo høyere
opp du kommer, desto mer synlig blir du…”
EN TT: “How can he not understand?” Elena asked despairingly. “My father was a member of the
Crimean government. He’s never mentioned that in a single curriculum vitae. And the higher you rise,
the more exposed you become.”
In this excerpt, the character expresses her concern about the fast career advancement of her
husband. She is afraid that the higher his position, the more thoroughly his background will be
checked. At some point, it may be revealed that his wife’s father was a member of the Crimean
government. The character’s concern is difficult to understand if one does not know that this
government was anti-Bolshevik, and an affiliation with it would be concealed at any cost.
A statistical analysis for this group of realia is provided in Table 26.
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Table 26. Rendering of the Russian realia referring to institutions in the English and Norwegian TTs
Norwegian English
Median = 8
Mode = 8
Total = 114
Median = 8
Mode = 8
Total = 114
Table 26 demonstrates identical results for the Norwegian and English translation solutions of
this class of realia. The modes and medians equal 8, which corresponds to Loan Translation.
This result was expected, as many realia denoting institutions are phrases or abbreviations
rather than simple nouns. Abbreviations and acronyms tend to be explicated, with very few
exceptions. Explicitation by Hypernym and Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification
are far more frequent in the English translations, while Retention with Extratextual
Specification is more typical for the Norwegian translations. In other words, whenever the
English translators see the need for a specification, they tend to incorporate it in the main text,
while the Norwegian translators (mostly Marit Bjerkeng) includes additional information in the
endnotes or footnotes. The only case when the name of an institution is explained in an
extratextual comment in an English TT is OSVAG, and it is explained, rather oddly, only at its
second occurrence.
6.3.4 Realia related to education
This thematic group covers realia denoting educational institutions and their members and
various other phenomena related to education (e.g. институтка, курсистка, гимназист,
рабфак, десятилетка, училище, семинарист, пятёрка). Educational systems across
different countries are quite similar; thus, it is often easy to find a calque or a functional
analogue in the TL to convey an SL educational concept. Yet the differences are significant
enough to cause misleading translation solutions. Below are two examples of transparent
calques which at first appear unproblematic as translation solutions, but may prove to be
puzzling for someone not familiar with Russian schools:
RU ST: (...) трагикомическое ее приключение было совершенно заслонено самоубийством
школьной красавицы Нины Борисовой, повесившейся в классе после окончания вечерней смены.
(LUS)
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NO TT: (...) ble hennes tragikomiske eventyr fullstendig overskygget av at skolens fremste skjønnhet
Nina Borisova hadde tatt livet av seg. Hun hadde hengt seg i klasserommet etter siste time på
kveldsskiftet.
EN TT: (...) her escapade had been totally eclipsed by the suicide of Nina Borisova, the prettiest girl in
the school, who had hanged herself in a classroom after the end of the evening’s classes.
The TTs feature a full calque in Norwegian and a modified calque in English, which both seem
self-explanatory. However, an uninitiated reader may be surprised to learn about “evening shift”
at school or “evening classes”, which may suggest that children study all day long. The realia
phrase refers to the fact that, as Soviet/Russian schools have often had rather limited capacity,
schooling is typically organized in two shifts, with some grades attending school before lunch
and others — after lunch. This piece of cultural information is not conveyed in the translations,
probably because it is not considered significant by the translators.
RU ST: К весне стало ясно, что в девятый класс ее не переведут. (LUS)
NO TT: Frem mot våren ble det klart at hun ikke kom til å bli flyttet opp i niende klasse.
EN TT: In the spring it became evident that she was not going to be allowed to progress to the ninth
grade.
Here the straightforward translation of the original phrase also seems sufficient at first.
However, one cannot take for granted that девятый класс in the Soviet/Russian system of
education is the same as the ninth grade elsewhere. In the Soviet Union, failure to be admitted
to the ninth grade implied that a student was not going to a high school, which consisted of the
ninth and tenth grade. Ultimately, it meant that one could miss the chance to enter a university.
All these nuances are implicit in the ST and are not made explicit in the TTs.
In another case, however, both translators attempt to make the hidden meaning of the
sentence explicit, because it is important for the understanding of the upcoming scenes:
RU ST: Он уже нацелился на высокую науку, ходил в математический кружок при мехмате, и
мозги его крутились с такими высокими оборотами, что руководитель кружка только кряхтел,
предвидя, как трудно будет юному дарованию пробить процентную норму Государственного
университета. (LUM)
NO TT: Han hadde allerede tatt sikte på å drive det langt innen vitenskapen, han gikk i matematikklubben
som ble drevet av Mekanisk-matematisk fakultet, og oppe i hjernevinningene hans gikk det så fort rundt
at lederen for klubben fortvilte når han tenkte på hvor vanskelig det ville bli for denne unge begavelsen
å komme med på jødekvoten ved det statlige universitetet.
EN TT: He was already setting his sights on big science. He went to the Mathematics Club at Moscow
University’s Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, and his brain revved at such high rates that the
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leader of the club could only groan at the thought of how difficult it would be for this young genius to
break through the percentage quota for Jews at the university.
The club leader believes that, without extraordinary exam results, it will be difficult for a
Jewish graduate to enter a university, because the number of admitted Jews was presumably
regulated in the USSR. This information is implicit in the original but understood by most SL
readers. It has to be noted that процентная норма is in fact a realia of the Russian Empire,
not the Soviet Union: until 1917 it referred to the official state policy limiting the number of
Jews in higher education to a certain percentage. In the late 1960s when the episode described
above takes place, if such a policy existed, it was not official. In both TTs, there is a
specification clarifying whom процентная норма concerns — jøder and Jews. The small
addition is sufficient to help the reader understand why this talented pupil may have difficulty
enrolling in college.
An interesting subgroup of education-related realia is lexical items describing grading.
Grading systems are often country-specific and are not easy to understand when rendered with
Loan Translation. All of the references to grades found in my data come from the two novels
by Ulitskaia — Sonechka and Medeia i ee deti — with Soviet Union as the main setting. Like
contemporary Russia, Soviet Union used a five-point academic grading system. Here is how
the original grades are treated in the Norwegian and English translations:
Table 27. The Norwegian and English renderings of the Soviet/Russian academic grades (a total
of 8 occurrences)
Russian Norwegian English
двойка
тройка
четвёрка
четвёрка
четвёрка
пятёрка
пятёрка
пятёрка
toer
treer
firer
firer
firer
femmer
femmer
femmer
failing mark
grade “satisfactory”
Grade Four
Four
Four
top mark
top grade
Five
Table 27 shows remarkable consistency in the Norwegian treatment of Soviet/Russian grades:
all of them are rendered with Loan Translation. The reason why these solutions are not regarded
as formal correspondents and not excluded from my data is because, when referring to a
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different grading system, these words obtain new meanings. While the top mark in Russia is
пятёрка, in Norway it is the grade 6. For someone used to a six-point grading scale, all of the
marks cited above, look slightly different from how they are perceived by the ST reader. The
English translation solutions are less consistent: some of the lexical items are treated
descriptively, while others are rendered with calques (in the latter case, the names of the grades
are capitalized). All in all, as far as realia denoting grades are concerned, the two Norwegian
TTs can be said to demonstrate a more foreignizing tendency.
A contextualized example may show how different translation solutions result in
slightly different utterances:
RU ST: Единственная пятерка, добытая без боя, была за сочинение — Александр Сергеевич
протянул ему дружественную руку. Тема «Ранняя лирика Пушкина» казалась Алику личным
подарком небес. (LUM)
NO TT: Den eneste femmeren han fikk uten å slåss for den, var i russisk stil — Aleksander Pusjkin ga
ham en vennskapelig håndstrekning. For Alik var det en personlig gave til ham fra oven da temaet ble
“Pusjkins tidlige lyrikk”.
EN TT: The only top grade he gained without a fight was for an essay in which Alexander Pushkin gave
him a helping hand: the topic of “Pushkin’s early lyric” was a gift from heaven.
The situation concerns the same talented Jewish school graduate discussed above. In an
attempt to enter a college, he takes entrance exams. Ideally, he needs to get all top grades in
order to be admitted. This is why the Norwegian solution might be a little misleading, as “five”
is not the top grade in Norway. Explicitation by Short Paraphrase in the English TT, top grade,
does not specify an exact grade, but conveys the most important semantic element of the SL
realia in the given context — the reference to a top grade.
The names of Russian educational institutions also present a problem for translators. A
number of them seem to have readily available counterparts in other languages but on closer
examination they prove to be semantically different from the SL words. Examples include:
гимназия → gymnas, grammar school; институт → Institutt, Institute; училище →
skole/gymnas, school/academy. Consider the following realia and its solutions:
RU ST: Медея Синопли была немеркнущей звездой женской гимназии (...). (LUM)
NO TT: Medea Sinopli var den klareste stjernen på pikegymnaset.
EN TT: Medea Sinoply was the star in the firmament of the girls’ grammar school (...).
The Norwegian solution for гимназия is gymnas which conveys the historical color of the
original word. However, while Russian гимназия refers to secondary school, including primary
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school, in pre-revolutionary Russia, Norwegian gymnas is an old name for high school. English
grammar school is closer to the original in the scope, as grammar schools also offer primary
education, but the term has very strong association with the UK and might sound a little out-
of-place in a Russian context. In most occurrences, however, гимназия is rendered simply as
school in the English translations.
In Shishkin’s Venerin volos, реальное училище which came into being as an alternative
to classic гимназия and admitted only boys, is rendered as realskole in Norwegian and
secondary school in English. The Norwegian solution has the same problem as with the
rendering of гимназия: while being etymologically and phonetically close to the Russian realia,
the word refers to a phenomenon that is somewhat different from the original one: in Norway,
realskole was a three-year school (introduced in 1935) that followed the 7th grade in primary
school. 65 In other words, like gymnas it corresponded to high school, whereas Russian
реальное училище also covered primary school. The following utterance describes a situation
where гимназия for girls was temporarily moved to the same building as реальное училище:
RU ST: Занятия будут в две смены, гимназистки с утра, а реалисты с обеда. (MS)
NO TT: Vi skal ha timer i to skift, vi pikene på gymnasiet fra morgenen av, og realistene efter middag.
EN TT: Classes will be in two shifts, girls in the morning, boys after the midday meal.
The event described in the narrator’s diary is significant because she lives in a time when
single-gender education is still practiced in Russia. The situation where two schools, for boys
and for girls, were located in the same place, was very unusual. In the ST, there is a double
opposition expressed by гимназистки and реалисты: between гимназия and реальное
училище (the latter, incidentally, was considered less prestigious) and between girls and boys.
It is interesting to observe how this double opposition is conveyed in the translations. In the
English TT, only the opposition between girls and boys is communicated. In the Norwegian
TT, on the other hand, there is an attempt to convey both oppositions: first, gymnaset is opposed
to realskole where, as readers infer, realistene study. Second, with pikene (girls) it is
emphasized that only girls study in the narrator’s school, while realistene remain gender-
unspecific. However, following the emphasis on girls, the male gender of realistene seems
implied.
Below is an example where the word гимназистка is used in a simile, and the girl’s
association with a specific type of school is perceived as irrelevant by the translators:
65 https://snl.no/realskole
244
RU ST: Во всяком случае, она явно предпочла бы его своему основному претенденту,
заслуженному артисту, недавнему вдовцу с зычным голосом, болтливому, тщеславному и
обидчивому, как гимназистка. (LUM)
NO TT: Hvordan det nå enn var, så var det klart for alle at hun foretrakk ham fremfor sin fremste tilbeder,
en berømt skuespiller som nylig var blitt enkemann og hadde stentorrøst, var pratsom, forfengelig og lot
seg fornærme like lett som en skolepike.
EN TT: At the very least he was clearly ahead of her principal suitor, an Actor of Merit recently widowed,
with a sonorous voice, garrulous, vain, and as quick to take offense as a schoolgirl.
The male character is portrayed as immature and touchy, hence the comparison with a
schoolgirl, which is communicated in both Norwegian and English translations. The gender
and age in this simile is more important than a particular kind of school.
There is a great deal of variation in the treatment of училище — a kind of vocational
school that normally does not give higher education:66
RU ST: Димитрий собирался поступать в военное училище в Таганроге, Константину шел
шестнадцатый, он метил в геологи. (LUM)
NO TT: Dimitrij skulle søke seg inn ved militærgymnaset i Taganrog, og Konstantin var snart seksten
og ville bli geolog.
EN TT: Dimitry was preparing to enter the military academy at Taganrog. Constantine was fifteen and
hoping to become a geologist.
This is a good illustration of how differently the name of an educational institution can be
treated. Училище becomes gymnas in Norwegian evoking associations with high school and
is promoted to academy in English, because the collocation military academy is common.
Despite the difference in the solutions, both are classified as Functional Substitution in my
model.
As many education-related realia are fixed expressions, Loan Translation is one of the
most frequent translation procedures employed by the translators. Examples include:
Академгородок → Akademibyen (NO), Высшие женские курсы → Women’s Higher
Courses (EN), лесная школа → skogskole (NO), политучеба → political education (EN),
рабфак → arbeiderfakultet (NO), workers’ faculty (EN).
Below is a summary of the quantitative results for the Norwegian and English TTs:
66 This use of the word is not to be confused with училище in the sense of a general education institution in the Russian Empire (as in реальное училище, народное училище).
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Table 28. Rendering of the Russian education-related realia in the English and Norwegian TTs
Norwegian English
Median = 8
Mode = 8
Total = 81
Median = 4
Mode = 3
Total = 81
Table 28 demonstrates some interesting results. There is a difference in the medians — 8 in
Norwegian versus 4 in English, and the Mann–Whitney U test reveals that the difference
between the two groups is in fact significant at p < 0.05. Apart from that, the mode in the
Norwegian subset equals 8, which implies that for the selected novels, the most typical
translation procedure for rendering education-related realia is Loan Translation. For the
English subset, the mode is 3, i.e. the domesticating procedure of Explicitation by Hypernym.
All in all, these results suggest that the English translation solutions combined show a more
domesticating tendency in treatment of education-related realia. It is also remarkable that the
most foreignizing procedure — Retention proper — is used only once: Академгородок →
Akademgorodok (EN), perhaps because this term was perceived as a proper noun by the
translator. Other types of Retention are not used at all.
6.3.5 Realia denoting social classes
This groups covers realia denoting forms of social stratification (estates, social classes, etc.)
and their members (мужик, интеллигент, боярин, холоп, мещанин).
The excerpt below describes a theatre performance based on the historical drama Boris
Godunov set in the 16th century. It features бояре — members of the old feudal aristocracy in
Russia:
RU ST: Театр покойного Всеволода Мейерхольда, погибшего, как известно, в 1927 году при
постановке пушкинского "Бориса Годунова", когда обрушились трапеции с голыми
боярами, выбросил движущуюся разных цветов электрическую вывеску (…). (MB)
NO TT: Teateret oppkalt etter den avdøde Vsevolod Meyerholdt — som kjent omkom han i 1927 under
en oppsetning av Pusjkins “Boris Godunov” da et trapes med nakne bojarer styrtet ned — bebudet med
et bevegelig, fargestrålende, elektrisk skilt (…).
246
EN TT: The theatre named after the deceased Vsevolod Meyerhold who, it will be remembered, met his
end in 1927 during a production of Pushkin’s Boris Godunov, when the trapezes with naked boyars
collapsed, sported arunning coloured neon strip (…).
The utterance, which has no importance for the development of the main story in Bulgakov’s
Rokovye iaitsa, is nevertheless very interesting if one takes notice of the cultural references
alluded to in the scene. Bulgakov’s novella was written in 1924, and the story is set in the near
future — in 1928. The description of the grotesque accident resulting in the death of the famous
theatre director Meyerhold is meant as a satire.67 Naked aristocrats (голые бояре) falling from
a trapeze in a historical drama probably intend to ridicule Meyerhold’s often provocative
experiments on stage. Although boyar and bojar used in the TTs above are included as
loanwords in English and Norwegian monolingual dictionaries, it is not certain that the average
TT reader would be familiar with this term and could picture what they looked like. Thus, the
parody on Meyerhold with the peculiar image of naked members of old Russian aristocracy
will remain unnoticed by the TT audience.
Another example of Retention with no specification is found in Bulgakov’s Koronatsiia:
RU ST: Триста лет рыли, а то и б-больше: и монахи в годы смуты, и мятежные стрельцы, и
раскольники, прятавшие от патриарха Никона старинные книги и церковное серебро (…). (BA)
NO TT: De gravde i tre hundre år, om ikke mer: både munkene i den urolige tiden på 1600-tallet, og de
opprørske Streletsene, og Raskolnikerne, som gjemte gamle bøker og kirkesølv fra Patriark Nikon (…).
EN TT: They must have been digging it for three hundred years, if not longer: the monks during the Time
of Troubles and the rebel Streltsy, and the Old Believers hiding their ancient books and church silver
from the Patriarch Nikon (...).
The historical realia стрельцы refers to a social stratum from which personnel for a special
permanent army were recruited from the 16th to the early 18th centuries. Unlike boyar/bojar,
neither Streletsene nor Streltsy are included in monolingual Norwegian and English dictionaries,
but English Strelsty can be found on the Internet. In the context above, the word must have been
retained in order to add historical/local color to the description (note also Raskolnikerne in the
Norwegian TT). In both cases, the word is capitalized to signal its foreignness, but its meaning
is not possible to infer from the given context. The way of transliteration is noteworthy: in the
Norwegian TT, the singular form of the original word is transliterated (strelets) and the definite
plural ending -ene is added; in the English TT, on the other hand, the Russian plural form
67 In reality, Meyerhold was arrested and executed in 1940.
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(streltsy) is transliterated. The latter may even be interpreted as a personal name by someone
not familiar with the term.
The word интеллигенция has been borrowed into many languages, including English
and Norwegian. It is one of the few words adopted from Russian which can be said to have lost
its strong association with Russia: while it is difficult to imagine the collocations “English
samovar” or “Norwegian tsar”, the phrase “British intelligentsia” is perfectly possible. While
this lexical item does not usually pose a problem in translation, the noun интеллигент referring
to a member of this social class is slightly more controversial. Consider the following example:
RU ST: (…) различие в их социальном уровне теперь, в перевернутом мире, оказалось не то чтобы
несущественным, а скорее выявляло все мнимые преимущества интеллигента перед пролетарием.
(LUS)
NO TT: I den verdenen der de levde nå, der alt stod på hodet, var forskjellen mellom dem når det gjaldt
sosial status ikke akkurat uvesentlig, men det var snarere slik at det ble tydelig hvor innbilte de var, de
fortrinnene intelligentsiaen skulle ha fremfor proletariatet.
EN TT: The difference in their social status was now, in a world turned upside down, not so much of no
significance as tending to show up the uselessness of the supposed advantages of an intellectual over a
proletarian.
Two members of different social classes are opposed in this utterance — интеллигент and
пролетарий. The Norwegian translator replaces the references to individuals by the references
to entire classes — intelligentsia and proletariat. By contrast, the English TT renders
интеллигент as an intellectual. The difference between intellectual and интеллигент is that
the latter, according to Gogolitsyna, implies “a sense of moral responsibility and interest in
social matters” (Gogolitsyna 2008: 36). However, even if such connotations are not relevant in
a given context, the translation solution intellectual still lacks an obvious link with a specific
social class defined as “people professionally engaged in the intellectual, mostly complex and
creative work” (Efremova 2000). In other contexts, the rendering intellectual is more justified:
RU ST: (...) как шутил ее муж, старый доктор Лавинский, интеллигент и библиофил, почти такая
же местная достопримечательность, как склеп Дианы. (LUM)
NO TT: (...) som mannen hennes spøkefullt kalte det, gamle doktor Lavinskij, en mann med dannelse
og sans for gamle bøker, han var en nesten like viktig severdighet i området som Dianas gravhvelv.
EN TT: (...) as it was jocularly described by her husband, old Dr. Lavinsky, an intellectual and
bibliophile who was almost as much of a local sight as the Vault of Diana.
In this sentence, the word интеллигент does not have an explicit association with a social class.
Rather, it is used in the sense of “educated, cultured person”. English intellectual is thus a
248
perfectly suitable solution here. The Norwegian TT features a short paraphrase en mann med
dannelse where the word dannelse refers to a complex concept of good education, culture and
a certain refinement of manners and taste.68
In the selected novels, the most frequent realia in the group of social classes is мужик,
and it is typically rendered as peasant and bonde (peasant). This word, however, has several
related senses: apart from referring to a Russian peasant, it is also used as a colloquial, rather
rude word for any man or a husband/partner. I have tried to exclude the occurrences of this
word in the latter sense from my analysis, but it is not always easy to distinguish between the
two senses. In the following example, also discussed in Section 6.2.2, мужик is clearly used in
the sense of a member of the lower social class:
RU ST: Запомнились мужики в котелках, мастеровые в нахлобученных шляпах всех фасонов —
кто-то несет охапку картузов. (MS)
NO TT: Jeg kommer til å tenke på noen menn med skalk på hodet, noen arbeidere med forskjellige hatter
trukket godt ned over ørene — en av dem bærer et helt fange med skyggeluer.
EN TT: I still remember muzhiks in derby hats, factory hands in every style of jammed-on hats — and
someone carrying an armful of peaked caps.
The scene describes looting — lower-class people are stealing hats from an expensive shop. In
the Norwegian TT, мужики is rendered with the generic word menn which fails to convey the
clash between their low status and the expensive hats they are wearing. Retention in the English
text, muzhiks, indicates that this is a culture-specific item and has potential for communicating
the tragic irony of the scene, provided the readers are familiar with the term.
It is interesting to notice that even in the cases where мужик seems to be used in the
more generic sense (man), the English TTs quite often render the word with Retention:
RU ST: Папа за ужином пытается объяснить мне загадку про мужика, лодку, волка, козу и кочан
капусты, про все эти переезды от берега к берегу (...). (MS)
NO TT: Pappa forsøker over aftensmaten å forklare meg gåten om mannen, båten, ulven, geiten og
kålhodet, om alle de roturene fra den ene bredden til den andre (...).
EN TT: Worst of all for me is arithmetic and the exact sciences in general. At supper Papa tries to explain
to me the mystery of the muzhik, the boat, the wolf, the goat, and the head of cabbage, about all those
trips from bank to bank (...).
Here the well-known river-crossing puzzle is discussed. Although it typically features a peasant,
the puzzle is so generic that one does not expect a foreignizing translation solution in this case.
68 https://www.naob.no/ordbok/dannelse
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Yet, in the English TT, we once again encounter muzhik. In another example, the link with
peasants is even weaker:
RU ST: Хозяйка рассказала, что бабы так привораживают мужиков (...). (MS)
NO TT: Vertinnen min fortalte at kvinnene gjør dette for å forgjøre mannfolk (...).
EN TT: The owner said that women seduce muzhiks that way.
The ST context highlights the relations between men and women, although using rude
colloquial words бабы and мужики. The Norwegian TT, accordingly, translates these lexical
items as kvinnene (the women) and mannfolk (men). However, the English TT, yet again,
features foreignizing Retention.
A comparative analysis of translation solutions for this group of realia yields the
following results:
Table 29. Rendering of the Russian realia denoting social classes in the English and Norwegian TTs
Norwegian English
Median = 3
Mode = 3
Total = 31
Median = 3
Mode = 3
Total = 31
Table 29 demonstrates identical results for the Norwegian and English translation solutions of
this type of realia. The modes and medians equal 3, which corresponds to Explicitation by
Hypernym. One observation worth mentioning is that Retention is more frequent in the English
TTs due to several occurrences of muzhik.
6.3.6 Realia denoting ranks, titles, forms of address
This large group includes realia denoting various ranks, titles and forms of address: барышня,
госпожа, гоф-фурьер, великий князь, царица сударь, коллежский советник,
заслуженный артист, etc. The characteristic feature of this category is that the terms for
ranks and titles form a culture-specific hierarchy. Thus, even when these realia are treated with
Loan Translation, the result might be rather obscure:
RU ST: По-моему, обличье особы шестого класса было мне очень даже к лицу. (BA)
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NO TT: Jeg syntes at utseendet til en person av sjette rangsklasse sto svært godt til ansiktet mitt.
EN TT: I fancied that the appearance of an individual of the sixth rank suited me very well indeed.
In this excerpt from Akunin’s novel, the majordomo is dressed up as someone else for disguise
— as a clerk of шестой класс. In the imperial Russia, all the classes were specified in the
official Table of Ranks. The Norwegian and English calques, sjette rangsklasse and the sixth
rank, do not communicate much information to the TT readers, as it is not clear how the ranking
system was organized, whether this is a high rank or not. However, from the delight of the
character, the readers may infer that this class is higher than his own rank.
The novel Koronatsiia by Boris Akunin abounds in historical realia of the Russian
Empire, including court titles, civil and military ranks. A large number of these titles were
borrowed from German: e.g. камер-фурьер, камер-юнкер, обер-камергер, гофмейстрина,
etc. In similar form they were also adopted by Danish and Swedish and through these languages
became part of the Norwegian lexicon. Despite having near equivalents in Norwegian, these
Russian words are regarded as realia in my study, because Russian камер-юнкер or камергер
are not identical to Scandinavian kammerjunker and kammerherre in their responsibilities,
status, relation to other titles, etc. These translation solutions can be viewed as Loan Translation,
more specifically — semantic calques described in section 5.3.2.5, as the meaning of the
Norwegian word obtains a slightly different denotative meaning in the Russian context. By
contrast, in the English TTs, distinctly British terms are typically used to replace references to
the Russian titles. Table 30 shows the difference between the Norwegian and English
renderings of some Russian court titles (all retrieved from Koronatsiia):
Table 30. The Norwegian and English translation solutions for the Russian court titles
Russian Norwegian English
камер-фурьер kammer-furer head of the bedchamber
камер-юнкер kammerjunker gentleman of the bedchamber
гофмейстрина hoffmesterinne lady-in-waiting
гоф-фурьер hoffurer housemaster
камер-лакей kammerlakei footman of the chamber
камер-паж kammerpasje page of the bedchamber
обер-камергер overkammerherre arch-chamberlain
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The word камер-лакей stands out in the list above, because there was no corresponding title in
the British court. Thus, the solution footman of the chamber can be viewed as Loan Translation
rather than Functional Substitution.
In Akunin’s text, there is an interesting excerpt where the narrator tells about the wish
of the new Empress to replace all the German titles by those used in the Tsardom of Muscovy:
RU ST: В прошлом году по почину новой императрицы, пожелавшей сделаться более русской
нежели сами русские, в придворном чиноименовании чуть было не свершилась целая революция
— возник проект поменять немецкие звания на старомосковские. Обер-камергеров задумали
переименовать в постельничих, камергеров в спальников, обер-шталмейстеров в ясельничих,
мундшенков в чарочников, камер-юнкеров в комнатных дворян и тому подобное.
NO TT: I fjor skjedde det, etter initiativ fra den nye keiserinnen, som ville være mer russisk enn russerne
selv, en hel revolusjon innen rangsbetegnelser ved hoffet hun satte i gang et prosjekt med å skifte ut de
tyske titlene med gamle moskovittiske.
EN TT: The previous year, on the initiative of the new empress, who wished to be more Russian than the
Russians themselves, a genuine revolution had almost taken place in the names of court rankings when a
project was conceived to replace all the German titles with old ones from Muscovy.
As evident from the TTs, neither the Norwegian translator nor the English one makes an attempt
to render the second sentence of this excerpt, probably because the task is too challenging
without this information being particularly important for the main narrative.
Великий князь, великая княгиня, великая княжна are Russian courtesy titles for
members of the tsar’s family which are encountered frequently in Koronatsiia. These titles are
normally rendered with established phrases in other languages: e.g. Norwegian storfyrste and
English grand duke for великий князь. However, whereas male titles are usually unproblematic,
there is some variation in the rendering of the female titles. Figure 8 demonstrates the relations
between the two SL titles and their Norwegian and English translation solutions observed in
my data:
Figure 8. The Norwegian and English solutions for великая княгиня and великая княжна
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As we can see, the relations between the SL realia and their TL counterparts are not as
straightforward as one may expect. While in English it is великая княгиня that has two
solutions, in Norwegian it is великая княжна. A similar pattern is observed for царица and
царевна. In English, царевна is rendered as both queen and tsarina, whereas царица — as
queen, tsarina and tsaritsa. In Norwegian, however, the translation solutions for these two titles
do not overlap: царевна is tsardatter, and царица is dronning, tsarina or keiserinne. Below is
an example where the word царица is used in a figurative sense:
RU ST: “Какое удовольствие хорошо петь! Сознаешь себя всемогущей, сознаешь себя царицей!”
(MS)
NO TT: “For en fornøyelse det er å synge godt! Du føler deg allmektig, føler deg som dronning!”
EN TT: “What a satisfaction it is to sing well! You realize you are all-powerful, a tsaritsa!”
This is an extract from a diary where царица is used metaphorically. A more foreignizing
solution is used in the English TT, while the Norwegian TT features Functional Substitution —
dronning.
Below is one example involving two titles from the Soviet era:
RU ST: (...) а он, сидя на приличной казенной зарплате, реставрировал купленные за гроши
музейные драгоценности театральной элиты, заслуженных и народных, понимавших толк в
хорошей мебели. (LUM)
NO TT: Han som ellers hadde en utmerket lønn fra staten, restaurerte i tillegg museumsklenodier som
teatereliten kjøpte for en slikk og ingenting — både anerkjente kunstnere og statsartister hadde vett på
fine møbler.
EN TT: Her husband, while collecting a decent state salary there, restored priceless antiques which the
theater elite, the Actors of Merit of the USSR and the Actresses of the Soviet People, who had an eye
for fine furniture, bought for a song.
It is interesting that the English translator renders the full names of the implied titles —
заслуженные и народные артисты/артистки СССР. Moreover, the translator is well-
advised to use two genders — actors and actresses — since the gender is not specified in the
original. The Norwegian translator paraphrases the ST realia — anerkjente kunstnere og
statsartister (renowned artists and state artists). On another occasion, заслуженный артист
is rendered simply as berømt skuespiller (famous actor). With solutions of this sort, it is not
even obvious that those are official titles.
Various forms of address have also been included in this class of realia. These are words
such as барин/барыня, господин/госпожа, сударь/сударыня, гражданин/гражданка. One
consistent pattern that is easy to notice is that, while in translations to Russian it is not
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uncommon to see loanwords as forms of address (e.g. герр, фру, мсье, мадам, мисс, мистер,
сэр, etc.), examples in the opposite direction, i.e. when Russian forms of address are transferred
into TTs as loanwords, are hard to come by. In my data, such cases are not found. All the
Russian traditional forms of address are rendered with Functional Substitution: барин → herre,
sir; барыня → frøken, my lady, Miss; госпожа → fru, Madam; господин сударь → min herre,
sir; etc.:
RU ST: “Вы взяли мою монету, сударь, извольте отдать!” – услышал он чей-то неприятный
скрипучий голос (...). (LT)
NO TT: “Min herre, De tok mynten min, vær vennlig å gi den tilbake!” lød en eller annen ubehagelig,
knirkende stemme (...).
EN TT: ‘You have taken my coin, sir!’ someone’s ugly, rasping voice rapped out – ‘Please be so good
as to return it!’ (...).
Both TTs feature Functional Substitution as a translation solution for сударь. The Norwegian
solution is also placed at the beginning of the sentence, unlike the SL word.
The Soviet form of address гражданин/гражданка is typically treated with Loan
Translation (borger and citizen):
RU ST: Здравствуйте, гражданин профессор. (MB)
NO TT: – God dag, borger professor.
NO TT: “Good morning, Citizen Professor.”
As it is not common to use the words borger and citizen as forms of address in Norwegian and
English, the result is rather foreignizing. Both phrases — borger professor and Citizen
Professor — are stylistically marked unlike, for instance, Mr Fandorin or herr Fandorin as
translation solutions for господин Фандорин.
The last example involves an informal form of address — дядя — that is rendered
differently in the two TTs:
RU ST: В лицо дохнуло гнилым и кислым, молодой голос гнусаво протянул:
– Ти-ихо, дядя, ти-ихо. (BA)
NO TT: Jeg kjente en råtten og sur ånde mot ansiktet, og en ung snøvlete stemme sa langtrukkent: “Sti-
ille, onkel, vær he-elt sltille.”
EN TT: A whiff of something rotten and sour blew into my face and a young, nasal voice drawled: ‘Ea-
sy now, Mister, ea-sy.’
Дядя in colloquial Russian may refer to any male stranger, and this is the use that we see in the
ST example above. In Norwegian, however, when onkel is used not in its literal meaning, it
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typically refers to a man who entertains or looks after children.69 It is interesting then that
foreignizing Loan Translation is used in the Norwegian text. The English TT, by contrast, uses
Functional Substitution — Mister — which, in the absence of any name, sounds far more
informal than sir, thus conveying the colloquial feel of the original word.
A statistical analysis for this group pf realia is provided below:
Table 31. Rendering of the Russian realia denoting ranks, titles and forms of address in the
English and Norwegian TTs
Norwegian English
Median = 8
Mode = 8
Total = 143
Median = 2
Mode = 2
Total = 148
Table 31 reveals different results for the Norwegian and English translation solutions of this
class of realia. The mode and median equal 8 in the Norwegian TTs, which corresponds to Loan
Translation, while the mode and median equal 2 in the English TTs, which represents
Functional Substitution. It is also noteworthy that the Mann–Whitney U test shows that the
difference in the two groups of data is statistically significant at the 0.05 significance level
(p-value=0.0465). From these results we can conclude that the Norwegian treatment of the
Russian titles realia is more foreignizing than the English treatment. However, it is important
to point out that the difference in the degree of foreignization is mostly due to a great number
of old Russian titles borrowed from German, which have very similar names in Norwegian.
6.3.7 Realia denoting military units and personnel
This group covers realia denoting military units and personnel: атаман, гардемарин, донцы,
камер-казак, военком, воевода, Гвардейский экипаж, спецназ, etc.
The realia казаки refers to the military class in the Russian Empire, natives of the former
border regions of the country, obliged to serve in special military units with their own
equipment, weapons and horses in exchange for preferential use of land. This word has rather
well-entrenched counterparts in English and Norwegian — Cossacks and kosakker — and is
69 https://ordbok.uib.no/
255
always rendered with these loanwords in the selected TTs. Below is an example featuring the
word донцы implying донские казаки:
RU ST: Потом не слишком стройным каре проследовали донцы (...). (BA)
NO TT: Deretter fulgte donkosakkene i en ikke altfor velordnet karré (...).
EN TT: Then the Don Cossacks rode past in a rather untidy square (...).
In both TTs, казаки are explicated: in Norwegian as a compound word and in English as a
phrase. In the following example, another realia related to казак is found:
RU ST: (...) за ними показался камер-фурьер Булкин, возглавлявший придворных служителей:
скороходов, арапов в чалмах, камер-казаков. (BA)
NO TT: (...) og etter dem kom kammer-furer Bulkin som anfører for de hoffansatte: ilbud, morianer med
turbaner, kammer-kosakker.
EN TT: (...) and behind them came Head of the Bedchamber Bulkin, who was leading the court servants:
footmen, blackamoors in turbans, Cossacks of the bedchamber.
Камер-казаки were personal bodyguards of Empresses and dowager Empresses of the Russian
Empire. The ST lexical item is a peculiar combination of a word borrowed from German —
kammer (chamber) — and the Russian word казаки. It is formed by analogy to other German
ranks adopted by the Russian court — камердинер, камер-юнкер, камер-фурьер. It is
interesting that the Norwegian TT retains the German element in the title, while the English TT
replaces it with the English counterpart. It probably has to do with the fact that some of the
German titles were also borrowed into Scandinavian languages, so Norwegian readers have
probably heard words such as kammerherre, kammerjunker, etc.
As with all ranks and titles, military ranks form a culture-specific hierarchy. As a result,
even when an SL word has a near-equivalent in the TL, the latter might not perfectly cover the
referential meaning of the original lexical item. The below example may illustrate this point:
RU ST: Сопровождавший генерал-губернатора корнет Глинский хотел было присоединиться к
его высочеству, но великий князь довольно резко сказал ему, что желает побыть в одиночестве
(…). (BA)
NO TT: Adjutant Glinskij ønsket å være sammen med Hans Høyhet, men storfyrst Simeon sa bryskt at
han ville være alene (...).
EN TT: Cornet Glinsky, who was accompanying the governor general, was about to join His Highness,
but the grand duke told him rather sharply that he wished to be alone (...).
In the Russian Empire, корнет referred to the lowest officer rank in the cavalry and the troops
of the border guards (Kuznetsov 2014). The English word cornet, although seeming like a
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perfect rendering of the Russian realia, corresponds to “the fifth grade of commissioned officer
in a cavalry troop, who carried the colours”.70 Clearly, there is a difference between the Russian
and British ranks of корнет/cornet, and thus in how much prestige is associated with these
titles. The Norwegian TT renders корнет with adjutant which refers to “an officer serving as
a helper for a senior officer or for a princely person”.71 Although the rank of adjutant involves
different responsibilities, it is, like корнет, low, and this is probably what the translator intends
to emphasize.
As a general principle, the differences found between similar titles across different
countries are not relevant in most literary translations. Thus, Functional Substitution is
commonly used. Other examples encountered in my data include: гардемарины → cadets (EN),
флигель-адъютант → adjutant (NO), aides-de-camps (EN), поручик → løytnant (NO),
lieutenant (EN), прапорщик → fenrik (NO), warrant officer (EN), ensign (EN), унтер-
офицер → NCO (EN), etc.
The utterance below features a very generic treatment in the Norwegian TT:
RU ST: Купила сборник песенок Вертинского. Боже, какой он гений! Так и вижу бедную
безноженьку, просящую между могил у Боженьки к весне подарочек — две большие ноженьки, и
лиловый фрак негра, подающего манто, и ту обезумевшую женщину, целующую в посиневшие
губы убитых юнкеров. (MS)
NO TT: Jeg har kjøpt en samling med Vertinskijs sanger. Herregud for et geni! Jeg ser det for meg, alt i
sangene hans: den stakkars lille benløse tiggersken som ligger mellom gravstenene og bønnfaller en mild
Gud om å få en presang når våren kommer, to store nye ben, negertjeneren i lilla livré som legger capen
over skuldrene på filmskuespillerinnen, og den fortvilede kvinnen som kysser de falne offiserene på deres
blåfrosne lepper.
EN TT: I bought a collection of Vertinsky’s songs. My God, what a genius he is! I can see the poor legless
girl among the graves asking for a spring gift from dear sweet God — two good legs — and the violet
frock of the negro handing her a fur coat, and that madwoman kissing the blue lips of the fallen cadets.
The Norwegian translator renders юнкера with Explicitation by Hypernym — offiserene,
because their actual military rank is not as important in this context as the fact that they were
killed. The English TT features Functional Substitution — cadets, which conveys the fact that
the killed soldiers are very young.72
70 https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/cornet 71 https://www.naob.no/ordbok/adjutant 72 This excerpt is interesting in yet another aspect, unrelated to the military ranks. The protagonist is listening to songs by Vertinsky and vividly pictures the characters from these songs. In the English TT, the translator’s failure to detect references coming from two different songs (Безноженька and Лиловый негр) results in an odd image: a legless girl praying in the cemetery and a negro handing her a fur coat.
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The following example, similarly to the previous one, demonstrates a difference in how
specific a translation solution is in the two TTs:
RU ST: – Да постой ты! – крикнул Фандорин вслед бывшему ефрейтору, уже кинувшемуся
выполнять приказ. (BA)
NO TT: “Vent!” ropte Fandorin etter den tidligere militære, som alt styrtet av sted for å utføre ordren.
EN TT: “And wait!” Fandorin shouted after the former private, first class, who was already dashing off
to carry out his orders.
Russian ефрейтор refers to the second military rank of the soldiers, following рядовой (private)
(Kuznetsov 2014). The English translator replaces it with a corresponding US rank: private first
class is “a noncommissioned rank in the US Army that is above private and below corporal”.73
The Norwegian TT, on the other hand, features a very generic translation solution — militær
(military). This is probably due to the fact that in the given context, it is not considered relevant
what rank the former soldier had.
Loan Translation is typically used when an ST lexical item consists of more than one
word or is an abbreviation. Below is one example featuring the Soviet military title of
замполит:
RU ST: А замполит, надев рясу, им в красном уголке все про то же (...). (MS)
NO TT: Og den politiske kommissæren, som nå har trukket i prestekjole, snakker om det samme under
andakten (...).
EN TT: And the deputy political officer put on his cassock and droned on in the red room (...).
Замполит is short for заместитель командира по политической работе. One of his main
tasks was providing political education and maintaining mental combat readiness of the soldiers.
In the cited excerpt, замполит is lecturing on fighting spirit, so his actual title is rather
important for interpretation of the scene. The English translator offers a partial calque of the
full name of the title. The Norwegian translation solution politisk kommissær seems to be a
combination of the two Soviet titles used for the same kind of job: военный комиссар (before
1942) and замполит (after 1942).
Another example where the full phrase is used instead of an abbreviation is below:
RU ST: Ладыжников стал говорить, что добрармия ничем не лучше красных. (MS)
NO TT: Ladyzjnikov begynte å snakke om at Frivilligarmeen ikke var et hår bedre enn de røde.
EN TT: Ladyzhnikov started saying that the Volunteer Army was no better than the Reds.
73 https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=private+first+class
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Добрармия refers to Добровольческая армия of the White movement created in the beginning
of the Civil War (Belovinskii 2015). In both translation solutions, the implied “white army” is
not explicated. However, as it is compared with the Red Army, it must be easy to infer from
this context that it is in fact the White Guard the character is talking about. Both solutions are
classified as Loan Translation, according to my typology.
Other examples of Loan Translation found in the military group of realia include, among
others, драгунский полк → dragonregiment (NO), Dragoons Regiment (EN), ратник
ополчения → menig i landvernet (NO), soldier in the home guard (EN), штабс-капитан →
stabskaptein (NO), staff captain (EN).
The last example features Retention of an abbreviation in the English TT:
RU ST: (...) но раздумывать некогда, позади спецназ, уже слышно, как они кричат: “Господь знает,
куда ведет нас, а мы узнаем в конце пути!”. (MS)
NO TT: (...) men du har ikke tid til å gruble, bak deg har du spesialpatruljen, du kan alt høre dem rope:
«Herren vet hvor han fører oss, vi får vite det ved reisens slutt!»
EN TT: (...) but there was no time to ponder that because the spetsnaz was behind and you could hear
them shouting, “The Lord knows where he leads us, but we shall find out at the end of our journey!”
Спецназ is abbreviation for войска/подразделение специального назначения and refers to
special forces in Russia. The Norwegian translation solution spesialpatruljen (special patrol)
can be regarded as partial Loan Translation or as Explicitation by Short Paraphrase. The English
translator, however, opts for Retention with no specification. Interestingly, the word Spetsnaz
can be found in an English monolingual dictionary, which indicates that the loanword has been
in use in English-speaking communities long enough to become relatively recognizable.
A statistical analysis for this group of realia is provided below:
Table 32. Rendering of the Russian military realia in the English and Norwegian TTs
Norwegian English
Median = 3
Mode = 2
Total = 60
Median = 3
Mode = 2
Total = 57
Table 32 demonstrates identical results for the Norwegian and English translation solutions of
the military realia. The medians equal 3, which corresponds to Explicitation by Hypernym, and
the modes equal 2, which is Functional Substitution. It is also worth noting that no military
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realia are given intratextual or extratextual specification when Retention or Loan Translation
are used.
6.3.8 Realia denoting awards and official documents
This small group of realia describes awards and official documents issued by the SL country:
e.g. охранная грамота, профсоюзная путевка, прописка, красный диплом, сберкнижка,
разрешение на выезд, андреевские цепи.
A number of prestigious awards given in honor of an achievement in the Russian Empire,
were named after saints. Short colloquial names of such awards derived from anthroponyms,
were in common use — Анна, Владимир, Георгий. When this sort of colloquial realia is
encountered in the ST, an Intratextual Specification is common in translation:
RU ST: Я снял с шеи Владимира, сунул в карман. (BA)
NO TT: Jeg tok Vladimirsordenen av halsen og puttet den i lommen.
EN TT: I took the Order of St Vladimir off my neck and put it in my pocket.
While the ST readers are vaguely familiar with the outdated terms for various awards in the
Russian Empire, the TT audience may need an additional explanation — hence, Retention with
Intratextual Specification in the English and Norwegian translations. Note that the English
solution also indicates that the order is named after Saint Vladimir. In another example featuring
андреевские цепи, the same is specified in the English rendition: андреевские цепи → chains
of St Andrew.
Realia denoting Russian education awards found in my data are treated either with Loan
Translation or with Explicitation by Short Paraphrase, depending on the transparency of the
Russian lexical item. For instance, красный диплом rendered with Loan Translation would
result in an obscure calque (red diploma); thus, both translators make use of explicitation —
utmerkede vitnemål (diploma with excellence) and distinctions on the diplomas. By contrast,
золотая и серебряная медали awarded upon graduation from secondary school are rendered
with Loan Translation, as the resulting translation solutions in this case are transparent enough,
due to the similarity to sport awards:
RU ST: Поскольку медаль он получил не золотую, а всего лишь серебряную, поступление в
институт представляло собой сражение с пятиглавым драконом. (LUM)
NO TT: Siden han ikke fikk eksamen med gullmedalje, men bare sølv, så ble det å komme inn ved
universitetet som en kamp mot en femhodet drage.
260
EN TT: Since he received not a gold but merely a silver medal on graduating from secondary school,
getting into university meant going into battle against a five-headed dragon.
It should be noted that in the excerpt above, both translators in addition to using calques offer
specification: in the Norwegian TT, eksamen (exam) is mentioned, and in the English TT —
graduating from secondary school. It is also noteworthy that the situation alluded to in the
utterance, despite its relative transparency, may remain a little difficult to understand for the
TT reader. The scene describes the Jewish character’s attempt to enter a prestigious medical
school. While it was explicated shortly before in the novel’s text that Jewish high school
graduates had difficulty enrolling in college in Soviet Union (see процентная норма in
Section 6.3.4), the actual system of bonuses and restrictions remains covert. It is not easy to
infer from the sentence above, what would have been different, had the Jewish character
received a gold medal.
On rare occasions, Explicitation nearly looks like a translator’s attempt to “correct” the
original:
RU ST: Федор в тот год получил Государственную премию, ждал нового назначения, чуть ли не
министерского. (LUM)
NO TT: Fjodor hadde fått Stalinprisen dette året og ventet seg en ny utnevnelse, nesten på ministernivå.
EN TT: That year Fyodor won the State Prize and was expecting a new appointment, almost at
ministerial level.
The exact time of the event described above is pinpointed in the previous sentence — 1940.
What is usually referred to as Государственная премия (the USSR State Prize) was the direct
successor of the Stalin Prize issued between 1940 and 1954. Thus, the character most likely
received the Stalin Prize indeed. The Norwegian translator’s solution involves a factual
correction while the English TT simply renders the realia with Loan Translation.
An interesting group of realia describes documents that have to do with permission to
reside in a specific place within the country or to leave the country, as this sort of documents is
not very common in the Western countries. Below is a sentence involving the typical
Soviet/Russian realia — прописка — obtained by a Polish character:
RU ST: За два года, проведенных в Москве, она достигла значительных успехов; у нее была
временная прописка, временное жилье в чулане при школе, где она работала уборщицей (...).
(LUS)
NO TT: I løpet av de to årene hun hadde vært i Moskva, hadde hun hatt mer enn ventelig hell med seg;
hun hadde midlertidig oppholdstillatelse, et midlertidig sted å bo i skuret ved skolen der hun arbeidet
som vaskehjelp (...).
261
EN TT: During her first two years in Moscow she scored some notable successes, obtaining a temporary
residence permit and temporary accommodation in a store room at the school where she had a cleaning
job.
These translation solutions might be misleading for TT readers who may think that, since the
character is Polish, oppholdstillatelse and residence permit denote some immigration
documents. In reality, прописка is part of the domestic registration system which was
particularly important in the recent past. Living for longer periods in a place where you did not
have official прописка, was strictly speaking forbidden.
Another type of residential registration is alluded to in the following excerpt:
RU ST: (...) город утопал в грязи, а он все бегал из одного ведомства в другое, затем на почту,
посылал всемилостивейшие просьбы и ходатайства о выдаче разрешения на жительство в
Санкт-Петербурге, прилагал врачебные справки (...). (LT)
NO TT: (...) byen druknet i gjørme, og han fløy hele tiden fra det ene kontoret til det andre, så på posten,
sendte de underdanigste anmodninger og søknader om tillatelse til å bosette seg i St. Petersburg, la ved
legeattester (...).
EN TT: (...) he would spend his time rushing through a city drowning in mud, from one department to
another — and then to the post-office to send requests and petitions to the Tsar with medical certificates
appended begging for permission to live in Saint Petersburg.
At first glance, Loan Translation used in both TTs communicates the meaning of the realia quite
well. However, a simple calque might not be enough for a TT reader to get a good understanding
of the situation. A possible paratextual comment could include information about the reasons
why the character (Dostoevsky) requires a special permission to reside in the capital of the
country. It has to do with the fact that, after the prison sentence and time in Siberian exile, he
was required to receive an official permission from the state to move to St Petersburg. One of
the reasons he was granted permission was his poor health (hence medical certificates
mentioned above) and his need for access to good healthcare.
The last official document I would like to discuss is разрешение на выезд mentioned
in Ulitskaia’s Medeia i ee deti:
RU ST: Утром того дня пришло разрешение на выезд. На сборы было дано двадцать дней, даже
много. (LUM)
NO TT: Utreisetillatelsen var kommet samme morgen. De hadde fått en frist på tjue dager til å gjøre seg
reiseklare, noe som faktisk var ganske mye.
EN TT: On the morning of that day, their permission to emigrate had arrived. They were given twenty
days to pack their things, which was fairly generous.
262
Similar to the previous example, this utterance contains a realia that is easy to render with Loan
Translation. However, a calque could have also benefited from additional information: not all
Norwegian- and English-speaking readers know that any trip outside of the Soviet Union, even
a tourist trip, required what was called выездная виза (exit visa), or разрешение на выезд.
The Norwegian solution above offers a straightforward calque — utreisetillatelse (exit
permission), while the English TT specifies that the document in this particular case allowed
the characters to emigrate.
The descriptive statistics for this group of realia are summarized in Table 33:
Table 33. Rendering of the Russian realia denoting awards and official documents in the English
and Norwegian TTs
Norwegian English
Median = 7
Mode = 8
Total = 16
Median = 6
Mode = 8
Total = 16
As evident from the Table 33, the results are similar: the medians are close, and the Mann–
Whitney U test revels, that the difference between the two groups is not significant. A few more
observations can be made: in my dataset, this sort of realia is never treated with Retention
proper; the most frequent translation procedure for both English and Norwegian subsets is Loan
Translation (mode 8); and English translators more frequently use Loan Translation with
Intratextual Specification (4 occurrences versus 1 in Norwegian).
6.3.9 Translation of socio-political realia — Summary
The large category of socio-political realia comprises a total of 539 tokens for the Norwegian
TTs and 541 tokens for the English TTs. The calculations performed for the data from this
category yield the following results:
263
Table 34. Rendering of the Russian socio-political realia in the English and Norwegian TTs
Norwegian English
Median = 8
Mode = 8
Total = 539
D = 44%
F = 56%
Median = 5
Mode = 8
Total = 541
D = 52%
F = 48%
Table 34 demonstrates interesting results. Although the modes are the same and correspond to
Loan Translation (8), the medians are different. The median for the Norwegian subset of data
is 8, while the median for the English subset is 5. The latter corresponds to Explicitation by
Extended Paraphrase. The percentages of domestication and foreignization shifts are also
different for the two groups. In the Norwegian TTs foreignization shifts dominate, which is due
to a large number of calques. Moreover, the Mann–Whitney U test reveals a statistically
significant difference between the two samples. With the p-value=0.04307 we can reject the
null hypothesis at the 0.05 significance level and conclude that the treatment of socio-political
realia is in fact more foreignizing in the Norwegian TT compared to the English TTs.
The three most commonly used translation procedures in the English and Norwegian
translations are Loan Translation, Functional Substitution and Explicitation by Hypernym. As
for Retention, the same pattern is observed as in the ethnographic category: Retention proper is
a little more frequent in the English TTs: 52 occurrences in English vs. 46 occurrences in
Norwegian. However, the lower number of Retention occurrences in the Norwegian TTs is
compensated by Retention with Extratextual Specification. Similarly, Loan Translation with
Extratextual Specification is only used in the Norwegian TTs.
Of the analyzed thematic groups in the socio-political category, two clearly demonstrate
a significant difference between the English and Norwegian TTs — realia related to education
and realia denoting ranks, titles and forms of address. The difference in the medians and the
Mann–Whitney U test both indicate that the treatment of these realia is more foreignizing in
the Norwegian TTs.
264
7 Comparative Quantitative Analysis of the Coupled Pairs
7.1 Translation strategies in the English and Norwegian translations In this section, I present statistical calculations for the coupled pairs identified in the Norwegian
and English TTs. Each novel is considered individually.
265
Table 35. Distribution of the translation shifts used to render Russian realia in the Norwegian
and English translations of Koronatsiia by Boris Akunin
Translation Shift Norwegian English
Retention 16 27
Retention with Extratextual Specification 0 0
Retention with Intratextual Short Specification 3 4
Retention with Intratextual Detailed Specification 0 0
Loan Translation 80 68
Loan Translation with Extratextual Specification 0 0
Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification 4 4
Explicitation by Extended Paraphrase 3 5
Explicitation by Short Paraphrase
(*Stylistic Adaptation)
36 49
Explicitation by Hypernym 76 52
Functional Substitution 70 98
Contextual Substitution 13 8
Omission 25 12
Figure 9. Distribution of the shifts in the translations of Koronatsiia by Boris Akunin
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Omission
Contextual Sustitution
Functional Substitution
Explicitation by Hypernym
Explicitation by Short Paraphrase
Explicitation by Extended Paraphrase
Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification
Loan Translation with Extratextual Specification
Loan Translation
Retention with Intratextual Detailed Specification
Retention with Intratextual Short Specification
Retention with Extratextual Specification
Retention
English Norwegian
266
Table 36. Rendering of the Russian realia in the translations of Koronatsiia by Boris Akunin
Norwegian English
Median = 3
Mode = 8
Total = 326
D = 68%, F = 32%
Median = 3
Mode = 2
Total = 327
D = 68%, F = 32%
Table 36 shows the measures of central tendency for the Norwegian and English translations
of Koronatsiia by Boris Akunin. The medians are the same and equal to 3, which is on the
domestication side of the scale. The modes are, however, different: the mode 8 in the Norwegian
data subset corresponds to Loan Translation in my model, and the mode 2 for the English data
subset corresponds to Functional Substitution. The percentages of the domestication and
foreignization shifts in the two groups are identical. The Mann–Whitney U test reveals no
significant difference between the two subsets of data. In other words, we fail to reject the null
hypothesis that the treatment of realia in the Norwegian and English translations of this novel
is the same in terms of domestication/foreignization.
Table 35 and Figure 9 demonstrate the distribution of the translation shifts that have
been used to render Russian realia in the Norwegian and English translations of Koronatsiia.
The following observations are noteworthy:
• Retention, Explicitation by Short Paraphrase and Functional Substitution are
more frequent in the English TT.
• Loan Translation, Explicitation by Hypernym and Omission are more typical of
the Norwegian TT.
• When it comes to Omission, it is remarkable that 25 occurrences of this shift are
found in one Norwegian translation, since the total number of Omissions in the
three Norwegian TTs combined is 31.
• Shifts involving Extratextual Specification are not found in the two translations.
Neither is Retention with Intratextual Detailed Specification.
267
Table 37. Distribution of the translation shifts used to render Russian realia in the Norwegian and
English translations of Rokovye iaitsa by Mikhail Bulgakov
Translation Shift Norwegian English
Retention 9 6
Retention with Extratextual Specification 0 0
Retention with Intratextual Short Specification 0 0
Retention with Intratextual Detailed Specification 0 0
Loan Translation 26 18
Loan Translation with Extratextual Specification 0 0
Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification 0 2
Explicitation by Extended Paraphrase 0 0
Explicitation by Short Paraphrase
(*Stylistic Adaptation)
3 6
Explicitation by Hypernym 15 18
Functional Substitution 26 24
Contextual Substitution 2 4
Omission 0 6
Figure 10. Distribution of the shifts in the translations of Rokovye iaitsa by Mikhail Bulgakov
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Omission
Contextual Sustitution
Functional Substitution
Explicitation by Hypernym
Explicitation by Short Paraphrase
Explicitation by Extended Paraphrase
Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification
Loan Translation with Extratextual Specification
Loan Translation
Retention with Intratextual Detailed Specification
Retention with Intratextual Short Specification
Retention with Extratextual Specification
Retention
English Norwegian
268
Table 38. Rendering of the Russian realia in the translations of Rokovye iaitsa by Mikhail
Bulgakov
Norwegian English
Median = 3
Mode = 2
Total = 81
D = 57%, F = 43%
Median = 3
Mode = 2
Total = 84
D = 69%, F = 31%
Table 38 shows the measures of central tendency for the Norwegian and English translations
of Rokovye iaitsa by Mikhail Bulgakov. The medians and modes are the same. The mode is
equal to 2, which means that Functional Substitution is the most frequent translation procedure
for rendering realia in both TTs. The percentage of domestication shifts, however, is higher in
the English translation. Once again, we cannot reject the null hypothesis that the treatment of
realia in the Norwegian and English translations of the novel is the same in terms of
domestication/foreignization.
Table 37 and Figure 10 demonstrate the distribution of the translation shifts that have
been used to render Russian realia in the Norwegian and English translations of Rokovye iaitsa.
These data allow us to make the following observations:
• 7 out of 13 shifts do not occur in the Norwegian TT, and 5 out of 13 shifts do
not occur in the English TT. The limited variation in shifts is due to a rather
small total number of realia in the ST.
• Loan Translation is more typical of the Norwegian TT.
• Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification and Omission are found only
in the English TT.
269
Table 39. Distribution of the translation shifts used to render Russian realia in the Norwegian and
English translations of Leto v Badene by Leonid Tsypkin
Translation Shift Norwegian English
Retention 25 17
Retention with Extratextual Specification 0 0
Retention with Intratextual Short Specification 1 2
Retention with Intratextual Detailed Specification 0 0
Loan Translation 35 25
Loan Translation with Extratextual Specification 0 0
Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification 0 3
Explicitation by Extended Paraphrase 2 4
Explicitation by Short Paraphrase
(*Stylistic Adaptation)
21 20
Explicitation by Hypernym 31 31
Functional Substitution 33 33
Contextual Substitution 2 13
Omission 3 1
Figure 11. Distribution of the shifts in the translations of Leto v Badene by Leonid Tsypkin
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Omission
Contextual Sustitution
Functional Substitution
Explicitation by Hypernym
Explicitation by Short Paraphrase
Explicitation by Extended Paraphrase
Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification
Loan Translation with Extratextual Specification
Loan Translation
Retention with Intratextual Detailed Specification
Retention with Intratextual Short Specification
Retention with Extratextual Specification
Retention
English Norwegian
270
Table 40. Rendering of the Russian realia in the translations of Leto v Badene by Leonid Tsypkin
Norwegian English
Median = 4
Mode = 8
Total = 153
D = 60%, F = 40%
Median = 3
Mode = 2
Total = 149
D = 68%, F = 32%
Table 40 shows the measures of central tendency for the Norwegian and English translations
of Leto v Badene by Leonid Tsypkin. The median is slightly larger in the Norwegian translation:
4 vs. 3. The modes are also different: the mode 8 in the Norwegian data subset corresponds to
Loan Translation in my model, and the mode 2 for the English data subset corresponds to
Functional Substitution. There is a difference in the percentages of the domestication and
foreignization shifts as well: foreignization solutions account for 40% in the Norwegian TT
versus 32% in the English TT. The Mann–Whitney U test, however, reveals no significant
difference between the two subsets of data (p-value=0.06732). Thus, we cannot reject the null
hypothesis that the treatment of realia in the Norwegian and English translations of this novel
is the same in terms of domestication/foreignization.
Table 39 and Figure 11 demonstrate the distribution of the translation shifts that have
been used to render Russian realia in the Norwegian and English translations of Leto v Badene.
From the analysis of the distribution we can make the following observations:
• Retention and Loan Translation are more frequent in the Norwegian translation.
• Contextual Substitution is more typical of the English translation.
• Translation shifts with Extratextual Specification are not found in the TTs.
• Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification occurs only in the English TT.
271
Table 41. Distribution of the translation shifts used to render Russian realia in the Norwegian and
English translations of Venerin volos by Mikhail Shishkin
Translation Shift Norwegian English
Retention 44 79
Retention with Extratextual Specification 24 3
Retention with Intratextual Short Specification 4 5
Retention with Intratextual Detailed Specification 3 0
Loan Translation 43 47
Loan Translation with Extratextual Specification 5 0
Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification 6 1
Explicitation by Extended Paraphrase 15 7
Explicitation by Short Paraphrase
(*Stylistic Adaptation)
66 43
Explicitation by Hypernym 59 69
Functional Substitution 57 64
Contextual Substitution 10 13
Omission 2 2
Figure 12. Distribution of the shifts in the translations of Venerin volos by Mikhail Shishkin
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Omission
Contextual Sustitution
Functional Substitution
Explicitation by Hypernym
Explicitation by Short Paraphrase
Explicitation by Extended Paraphrase
Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification
Loan Translation with Extratextual Specification
Loan Translation
Retention with Intratextual Detailed Specification
Retention with Intratextual Short Specification
Retention with Extratextual Specification
Retention
English Norwegian
272
Table 42. Rendering of the Russian realia in the translations of Venerin volos by Mikhail Shishkin
Norwegian English
Median = 4
Mode = 4
Total = 338
D = 62%, F = 38%
Median = 4
Mode = 12
Total = 333
D = 59%, F = 41%
Table 42 shows the measures of central tendency for the Norwegian and English translations
of Venerin volos by Mikhail Shishkin. The percentages of the domestication and foreignization
shifts in the two groups are nearly the same. The medians are identical and equal 4, which is on
the domestication side of the scale. The modes are, however, different: the mode 4 in the
Norwegian data subset corresponds to Explicitation by Short Paraphrase in my model, and the
mode 12 for the English data subset corresponds to Retention. It is interesting that Retention,
the most foreignizing shift, proved to be the most frequent shift in one TT. Nevertheless, the
equal medians and the Mann–Whitney U test show no significant difference between the two
subsets of data (p-value=0.9196). Yet again, we fail to reject the null hypothesis that the
treatment of realia in the Norwegian and English translations of this novel is the same in terms
of domestication/foreignization.
Table 41 and Figure 12 demonstrate the distribution of the translation shifts that have
been used to render Russian realia in the Norwegian and English translations of Venerin volos.
The following observations are noteworthy:
• Retention proper is far more frequent in the English TT. This difference is
compensated by a larger number of Retention with Extratextual Specification in
the Norwegian TT.
• Explicitation by Short Paraphrase is more frequent in the Norwegian TT.
• Explicitation by Hypernym and Functional Substitution are somewhat more
typical of the English TT.
273
Table 43. Distribution of the translation shifts used to render Russian realia in the Norwegian and
English translations of Sonechka by Liudmila Ulitskaia
Translation Shift Norwegian English
Retention 4 4
Retention with Extratextual Specification 1 0
Retention with Intratextual Short Specification 3 3
Retention with Intratextual Detailed Specification 1 0
Loan Translation 9 7
Loan Translation with Extratextual Specification 2 0
Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification 1 4
Explicitation by Extended Paraphrase 3 3
Explicitation by Short Paraphrase
(*Stylistic Adaptation)
15 16
Explicitation by Hypernym 3 4
Functional Substitution 10 12
Contextual Substitution 1 3
Omission 0 0
Figure 13. Distribution of the shifts in the translations of Sonechka by Liudmila Ulitskaia
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
Omission
Contextual Sustitution
Functional Substitution
Explicitation by Hypernym
Explicitation by Short Paraphrase
Explicitation by Extended Paraphrase
Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification
Loan Translation with Extratextual Specification
Loan Translation
Retention with Intratextual Detailed Specification
Retention with Intratextual Short Specification
Retention with Extratextual Specification
Retention
English Norwegian
274
Table 44. Rendering of the Russian realia in the translations of Sonechka by Liudmila Ulitskaia
Norwegian English
Median = 4
Mode = 4
Total = 53
D = 60%, F = 40%
Median = 4
Mode = 4
Total = 56
D = 68%, F = 32%
Table 44 shows the measures of central tendency for the Norwegian and English translations
of Sonechka by Liudmila Ulitskaia. The medians and modes are the same and equal to 4, which
corresponds to Explicitation by Short Paraphrase in my model. The percentages of
domestication and foreignization shifts are slightly different in the two TTs. We have no reason
to reject the null hypothesis that the treatment of realia in the Norwegian and English
translations of the novel is the same in terms of domestication/foreignization.
Table 43 and Figure 13 demonstrate the distribution of the translation shifts that have
been used to render Russian realia in the Norwegian and English translations of Sonechka. From
these data we can make the following observations:
• Translation shifts with Intratextual Specification are found only in the
Norwegian TT.
• Apart from that, the frequencies of various translation shifts are very similar in
both TTs. The difference between the frequencies is typically 1–2 occurrences.
This, of course, is partly explained by the fact that the total number of realia in
the ST is small.
• The 3-point difference between the frequencies is found only in the case of one
shift — Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification. The number of its
occurrences is bigger in the English TT.
275
Table 45. Distribution of the translation shifts used to render Russian realia in the Norwegian and
English translations of Medeia i ee deti by Liudmila Ulitskaia
Translation Shift Norwegian English
Retention 19 27
Retention with Extratextual Specification 12 0
Retention with Intratextual Short Specification 4 10
Retention with Intratextual Detailed Specification 6 3
Loan Translation 69 60
Loan Translation with Extratextual Specification 2 0
Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification 6 17
Explicitation by Extended Paraphrase 9 13
Explicitation by Short Paraphrase
(*Stylistic Adaptation)
48 36
Explicitation by Hypernym 29 36
Functional Substitution 29 25
Contextual Substitution 6 12
Omission 1 2
Figure 14. Distribution of the shifts in the translations of Medeia i ee deti by Liudmila Ulitskaia
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Omission
Contextual Sustitution
Functional Substitution
Explicitation by Hypernym
Explicitation by Short Paraphrase
Explicitation by Extended Paraphrase
Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification
Loan Translation with Extratextual Specification
Loan Translation
Retention with Intratextual Detailed Specification
Retention with Intratextual Short Specification
Retention with Extratextual Specification
Retention
English Norwegian
276
Table 46. Rendering of the Russian realia in the translations of Medeia i ee deti by Liudmila
Ulitskaia
Norwegian English
Median = 5
Mode = 8
Total = 240
D = 51%, F = 49%
Median = 5
Mode = 8
Total = 241
D = 51%, F = 49%
Table 46 shows the measures of central tendency for the Norwegian and English translations
of Medeia i ee deti by Liudmila Ulitskaia. It is remarkable that all the values are the same: the
medians, modes and percentages of domestication and foreignization shifts. It is also the only
case in my data when the proportion of domestication shifts is virtually the same as that of
foreignization shifts. The modes equal 8, which corresponds to Loan Translation. In sum, we
fail to reject the null hypothesis that the treatment of realia in the Norwegian and English
translations of the novel is the same in terms of domestication/foreignization.
Table 45 and Figure 14 demonstrate the distribution of the translation shifts that have
been used to render Russian realia in the Norwegian and English translations of Medeia i ee
deti. These data lead us to the following observations:
• Retention proper is more common in the English TT.
• Translation shifts with Extratextual Specification are observed only in the
Norwegians TT.
• However, Retention with Intratextual Short Specification and Loan Translation
with Intratextual Specification are more frequent in the English TT.
• Loan Translation and Explicitation by Short Paraphrase are more typical of the
Norwegian TT.
• Explicitation by Hypernym and Contextual Substitution are more frequent in the
English TT.
277
7.2 Translation regularities in the Norwegian and English translations
Table 47. Distribution of the translation shifts used to render Russian realia in the Norwegian and
English TTs
Translation Shift Norwegian English
Retention 117 160
Retention with Extratextual Specification 37 3
Retention with Intratextual Short Specification 15 24
Retention with Intratextual Detailed Specification 10 3
Loan Translation 262 225
Loan Translation with Extratextual Specification 9 0
Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification 17 31
Explicitation by Extended Paraphrase 32 32
Explicitation by Short Paraphrase
(*Stylistic Adaptation)
169
(20)
153
(17)
Explicitation by Hypernym 213 210
Functional Substitution 225 256
Contextual Substitution 34 53
Omission 31 23
Figure 15. Distribution of the translation shifts in all of the selected Norwegian and English TTs
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Omission
Contextual Sustitution
Functional Substitution
Explicitation by Hypernym
Explicitation by Short Paraphrase
Explicitation by Extended Paraphrase
Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification
Loan Translation with Extratextual Specification
Loan Translation
Retention with Intratextual Detailed Specification
Retention with Intratextual Short Specification
Retention with Extratextual Specification
Retention
English Norwegian
278
Table 48. Rendering of the Russian realia in the selected English and Norwegian TTs
Norwegian English
Median = 4
Mode = 8
Total = 1191
D = 61%, F = 39%
Median = 4
Mode = 2
Total = 1190
D = 63%, F = 37%
Table 48 shows the measures of central tendency for all the Norwegian and English TTs. The
medians are the same and equal to 4 (Explicitation by Short Paraphrase), which is on the
domestication side of the scale. The modes are, however, different: the mode 8 in the Norwegian
data subset corresponds to Loan Translation in my model, and the mode 2 for the English data
subset corresponds to Functional Substitution. The percentages of the domestication and
foreignization shifts in the two groups are nearly the same. Most importantly, the Mann–
Whitney U test reveals no significant difference between the two subsets of data
(p-value=0.2321). Thus, we have no reason to reject the null hypothesis that the treatment of
realia in the selected Norwegian TTs and English TTs is the same in terms of
domestication/foreignization.
Table 47 and Figure 15 demonstrate the distribution of the translation shifts that have
been used to render Russian realia in the selected Norwegian and English translations. From
these data we can make several observations:
• In my dataset, the five most frequent translation procedures used to render realia
are Loan Translation, Functional Substitution, Explicitation by Hypernym,
Explicitation by Short Paraphrase and Retention.
• Retention proper is more frequent in the English TTs, but Retention with
Extratextual Specification is more typical of the Norwegian TTs. This explains
why the number of Retention uses is lower in the Norwegian TTs.
• Loan Translation is more frequent in the Norwegian TTs, and Loan Translation
with Extratextual Specification is found only in the Norwegian TTs. English
TTs tend to incorporate Specification in the main text.
• Functional Substitution and Contextual Substitution are more typical of the
English TTs.
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The comparison of the individual Norwegian and English TTs presented above reveals that the
medians are identical in all but one case — in Leto v Badene by Leonid Tsypkin the median is
slightly larger in the Norwegian TT than in the English TT (4 vs. 3). However, even in this case
the Mann–Whitney U test shows no significant difference between the two translations at the
0.05 significance level. The proportion of domestication shifts is larger in all of the TTs.
However, in the translations of Medeia i ee deti, the rates of domestication and foreignization
shifts are exceptionally balanced, i.e. virtually the same in both TTs.
7.3 Translation regularities in the Norwegian translations by Dagfinn Foldøy
and Marit Bjerkeng
Below are the results of the comparison of three Norwegian translations made by Dagfinn
Foldøy and three translations made by Marit Bjerkeng. This part of the quantitative study is the
most problematic one, because the total number of coupled pairs identified for each translator
is not equal. However, since we examine the measures of central tendency and not the sum of
all the values and since the Mann–Whitney U test does not require equal size of the samples,
we can perform a statistical analysis.
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Table 49. Distribution of the translation shifts rendering Russian realia in the Norwegian
translations by Dagfinn Foldøy and Marit Bjerkeng
Translation Shift D. Foldøy M. Bjerkeng
Retention 50 67
Retention with Extratextual Specification 0 37
Retention with Intratextual Short Specification 4 11
Retention with Intratextual Detailed Specification 0 10
Loan Translation 141 121
Loan Translation with Extratextual Specification 0 9
Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification 4 13
Explicitation by Extended Paraphrase 5 27
Explicitation by Short Paraphrase
(*Stylistic Adaptation)
60 129
Explicitation by Hypernym 122 91
Functional Substitution 129 96
Contextual Substitution 17 17
Omission 28 3
Figure 16. Distribution of the translation shifts in the translations by Dagfinn Foldøy and Marit Bjerkeng
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
Omission
Contextual Sustitution
Functional Substitution
Explicitation by Hypernym
Explicitation by Short Paraphrase
Explicitation by Extended Paraphrase
Loan Translation with Intratextual Specification
Loan Translation with Extratextual Specification
Loan Translation
Retention with Intratextual Detailed Specification
Retention with Intratextual Short Specification
Retention with Extratextual Specification
Retention
Marit Bjerkeng Dagfinn Foldøy
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Table 50. Rendering of the Russian realia in the translations by D. Foldøy and M. Bjerkeng
Dagfinn Foldøy Marit Bjerkeng
Median = 3
Mode = 8
Total = 560
D = 64%, F = 36%
Median = 4
Mode = 4
Total = 631
D = 58%, F = 42%
The comparison of the works of the two Norwegian translators produces rather interesting
results. Table 50 shows the measures of central tendency for the translations by Dagfinn Foldøy
and Marit Bjerkeng. Both the medians and modes are different for the two samples. Despite the
difference in the medians being small, the Mann–Whitney U test reveals a statistically
significant difference between the two groups of TTs (p-value=8.11e-09). In other words, we
can reject the null hypothesis and conclude that the selected translations by Dagfinn Foldøy are
more domesticating than the selected translations by Marit Bjerkeng. This is a noteworthy
outcome in light of the fact that the comparison of the Norwegian and English TTs (individually
and combined) did not reveal a significant difference between them.
The median 3 corresponds to Explicitation by Hypernym, and the median 4 — to
Explicitation by Short Paraphrase. The modes, i.e. the most frequently occurring shifts, are
Loan Translation for Dagfinn Foldøy and Explicitation by Short Paraphrase for Marit Bjerkeng.
The following observations can be made from an analysis of the distribution of translation shifts
presented in Table 49 and Figure 16:
• All types of Retention are more typical of translations by M. Bjerkeng. Retention with
Extratextual Specification and Retention with Intratextual Detailed Specification are
found only in her works (37 occurrences and 10 occurrences).
• Loan Translation with no specification occurs more frequently in the translations by
D. Foldøy. However, Loan Translation with Extratextual or Intratextual Specification
is more frequent in the translations by M. Bjerkeng.
• Explicitation by Short Paraphrase and Explicitation by Extended Paraphrase are more
typical of the texts by M. Bjerkeng.
• Explicitation by Hypernym and Functional Substitution are more frequent in the
translations by D. Foldøy.
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• Omission occurs more often in the translations by D. Foldøy despite the smaller total
number of coupled pairs identified in his works (28 occurrences vs. 3 occurrences in
Bjerkeng’s works).
The rejection of the null hypothesis for the two Norwegian translators may lead us to the
conclusion that treatment of realia depends on the idiosyncrasies of a specific translator. To
avoid making hasty conclusions, I have decided to check what the measures of central tendency
look like for the corresponding English translations. In other words, I have divided the English
TTs into two groups depending on the authorship of the Norwegian TT. The following results
have been received for these two groups:
Table 51. Rendering of the Russian realia in the two groups of English TTs
Group 1 Group 2
Median = 3
Mode = 2
Total = 560
D = 69%, F = 31%
Median = 4
Mode = 8
Total = 631
D = 57%, F = 43%
Although the modes in these two English groups differ from those in the two Norwegian groups,
the medians correspond to the values in the Norwegian data. The second group seems to have
more foreignizing treatment of realia. The Mann–Whitney U test confirms there is a statistically
significant difference between the two groups of English TTs (p-value=1.208e-09). This result
points away from the conclusion that the degree of domestication of realia is translator-specific.
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8 Conclusions 8.1 Main findings The primary goal of the present study has been to investigate how contemporary Norwegian
and English translators of Russian fiction render culture-bound vocabulary — realia. Instead
of examining various translation phenomena on a selective basis, I have focused on one lexical
category and analyzed it non-selectively in several target texts to reveal patterns of translation.
This was done to keep my investigation as unbiased as possible, in compliance with the
principles of Descriptive Translation Studies.
In Chapter 2, I have proposed a nuanced definition of realia and described this lexical
category from different angles. I have also discussed a number of ways in which realia can be
classified. The thematic classification has proved most relevant to my study and provided the
basis for the qualitative part of my analysis.
In order to show that there will often be several valid translation solutions for realia, I
have decided to carry out a comparative analysis. I have done this by including two target texts
for each source text in the present study. Several selection criteria for source and target texts
have been considered, and six Russian novels and their recent Norwegian and English
translations have been selected.
As described in Chapter 1, one of the main incentives for undertaking this study was a
wish to develop and test a quantitative model for measuring the degree of domestication in
different target texts. In particular, I intended to use it as a tool of comparative analysis of
coupled pairs in the two subsets of data — English and Norwegian. In order to do this, I have
analyzed universal and specialized typologies of translation shifts offered by previous studies
and developed my own typology based on the empirical study of coupled pairs in my data. This
typology underlies the quantitative model proposed in Section 5.4.2 — a 13-point scale ranging
from the most domesticating shifts to the most foreignizing ones. I have applied this model to
my data to test the main null hypotheses outlined in the Introduction and received the following
results:
1. The treatment of realia is the same in the degree of domestication in the
Norwegian and English translations when each of the selected six novels is
considered individually. The only case when the medians are not identical is the
translations of Leto v Badene by Leonid Tsypkin. The median is larger in the
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Norwegian TT, but the Mann–Whitney U test reveals no significant difference
between the two target texts at the 0.05 significance level.
2. The treatment of realia is the same in the degree of domestication in the
Norwegian and English translations when all the selected novels are considered
combined. There is a difference in the modes, but the medians are identical, and
the Mann–Whitney U test reveals no significant difference between the
Norwegian and English target texts at the 0.05 significance level.
3. The treatment of realia is different in the degree of domestication in the two
groups of the Norwegian TTs — translations by Marit Bjerkeng and translations
by Dagfinn Foldøy. The difference in the medians and modes as well as the
Mann–Whitney U test point to a more domesticating tendency in the translations
by Foldøy. This result is rather interesting given the fact that I failed to reject
the null hypothesis in all parts of my cross-linguistic comparison of the TTs. In
addition to that, a comparison of the corresponding English translations has been
made, and it has also revealed a significant difference.
Before making any assumptions about the implications of this outcome, I should also report the
results received in the comparative analysis of English and Norwegian shifts for various
thematic groups of realia. Here, the calculations revealed no difference in the degree of
domestication in any groups of the ethnographic category but showed a statistically significant
difference in two groups of the socio-political category — education-related realia and realia
denoting ranks, titles and forms of address. For these groups, the Norwegian translations have
proved to be more foreignizing. Moreover, the comparison of the English and Norwegian
coupled pairs for the whole category of socio-political realia also demonstrated a significant
difference between the two target languages.
All the results described above may be summarized in the following table: Table 52. The results of the comparative analysis of shifts in the Norwegian and English target texts.
Object of Comparison Result
1 NO TT vs. 1 EN TT (x 6) same
6 NO TTs vs. 6 EN TTs same
3 NO TTs (Bjerkeng) vs. 3 NO TTs (Foldøy) more foreignizing in the TTs by Bjerkeng
285
3 EN TTs (group 1) vs. 3 EN TTs (group 2) more foreignizing in the TTs from in Group 1
Ethnographic realia: 6 NO TTs vs. 6 EN TTs same
Socio-political realia: 6NO TTs vs. 6 EN TTs more foreignizing in the Norwegian TTs
If we consider only the first three rows of the table above, we may conclude that the treatment
of realia depends on the choices made by individual translators. However, if we also include
the other three rows in our analysis, the overall translation regularities may receive a different
interpretation. The results from Table 52, viewed as a whole, suggest that, at least for my dataset,
the degree of domestication/foreignization of realia has more to do with the nature of the source
text rather than with the specific translator’s style or the target language — English or
Norwegian. In other words, if a source text features many socio-political lexical items, realia in
the English or Norwegian translation would be treated in a more foreignizing way than is the
case for translations of texts with mostly ethnographic realia. Of course, the validity of this
finding is limited to my dataset, and any extrapolation to larger groups of texts would require
further investigation.
Although I have come to the conclusion that, all in all, the treatment of realia in my
dataset is not translator-specific, a close analysis of translation solutions reveals certain
idiosyncrasies of the specific translators. This becomes most obvious when the use of paratext
is considered. One of the most distinctive characteristics of the translations by Marit Bjerkeng
is that she includes endnotes and a small number of footnotes in her texts where she explains
not only unfamiliar realia, but also Russian name traditions, various cultural allusions,
references to historical figures, etc.
In Section 1.5, I expressed my wish to investigate how the patterns discovered in the
treatment of realia will fit in the Polysystem Theory. According to this theory, if translated
literature occupies a peripheral position in the polysystem of the target culture, it tends to
preserve conventional forms and conforms to the linguistic and literary norms of the target
system. Translators, thus, produce more domesticating texts. As translated literature occupies a
more central position in the Norwegian polysystem than it does in the British/American
polysystem, I hypothesized that the English translations will be found at least as domesticating
as the Norwegian ones (and possibly more domesticating) with regard to realia. This has been
confirmed by my calculations, which yielded the same degree of domestication for the two data
subsets. However, the second assumption — that the two groups of Norwegian TTs would
286
prove to be similar in the degree of domestication of realia — has not been verified by statistical
calculations.
The qualitative part of the study in Chapter 6 was intended to complement the
quantitative part and provide a selective detailed analysis of English and Norwegian translation
solutions for realia. Sorting my data by thematic categories, I have examined realia in specific
contexts and compared their translation solutions in English and Norwegian TTs. In particular,
I have tried to identify what formal and semantic changes occur in translation. I have sought to
show what role a given realia plays in a specific context and whether leaving out some of its
semantic features in translation may result in different imagery I have made a number of
assumptions about the motivation of the translators: what may have prompted this or that
specific solution and why certain semantic features, rather than others, have been made explicit.
This part of the analysis has revealed, among other things, that many translation solutions are
highly context-dependent. The importance of a specific lexical item in a given context is often
a key factor in the translator’s choice of solution. Further, a realia may receive a more
foreignizing treatment because it has been previously explained in the main text or paratext and
is therefore regarded by the translator as relatively familiar to the target readers. Various other
factors may come into play: stylistic considerations, figurative or literal usage of realia, play on
words in which a particular realia is involved, occurrence in a dialog, monolog or a 3rd person
narrative, the word class of the realia (noun, adjective, phrase), inclusion in the TL monolingual
dictionaries, pertinence to the SL obsolete lexis, etc. Some choices seem to be motivated by the
translation tradition — that is, a well-established solution is chosen because of its repeated
occurrence in previous translations to the TL in question.
Despite my best attempts to take into account the various factors contributing to the
translator’s choice, I have also found that some of the shifts are extremely difficult or impossible
to explain. On some occasions, I have also made assumptions about the potential effect a
specific translation solution may have on the TT audience as compared to the realia’s effect on
the ST readers. I have speculated that, while domesticating shifts will remain largely unnoticed,
foreignizing shifts such as different types of Retention and Loan Translation may inhibit
comprehension: the meaning of an unknown retained realia may not be possible to infer from
the context, and a calque may not be transparent enough to convey the ST meaning
Taken as a whole, the quantitative and qualitative parts of my study have contributed to
a better understanding of how this translation-resistant category, realia, is treated in literary
translation. While the quantitative examination has revealed overall tendencies in the
domestication/foreignization of realia in translations, a qualitative study allowed me to provide
287
a detailed context-based description of translation solutions on the micro-level. Once again,
given the limited dataset, I must stress that no broad generalization is possible, and that I make
no attempt to draw any conclusions regarding translation norms. In particular, the fact that a
significant difference between the English and Norwegian TTs was not found, may be attributed
to the small number of TTs included in my analysis. A larger corpus might have produced
different results.
8.2 Suggestions for future research In my study, I have intentionally focused on recent translations from Russian, as I wanted to
see how TTs produced in the approximately the same time period would compare. However, it
would be interesting to conduct a similar diachronic study to see whether the degree of
domestication of a specific translation phenomenon changes over time.
The quantitative model presented in my dissertation has potential for refinement. While
constructing this model, I have encountered a number of problems which can be addressed in
future research. For instance, some translation shifts do not fit neatly into the typology I have
developed: these are semantic calque, partial calque, near-retention, stylistic adaptation.
Norwegian compounds used as translation solutions for realia can often be viewed as
hypernyms or short paraphrases. These issues may be partly addressed with a more rigorous
lexico-semantic analysis. However, some of the problems cannot be resolved because lexical
items of different languages form their own hierarchies which cannot be easily mapped onto
each other. Thus, it is often difficult to establish whether a word from one language can be
regarded as a hypernym of a word from another language.
Defining the boundaries of the lexical category of realia has also posed a challenge. It
is often problematic to make a distinction between “internal” and “external” realia, especially
if realia comes from a multicultural community. In addition to that, realia which have
established counterparts in the TL but still carry cultural connotations are difficult to classify.
When collecting my data, I have classified translation solutions in a number of ways. Among
other things, I have determined the place of the realia in a temporal classification, its origin
(Slavic, non-Slavic, etc.) and its word class. I have also noted whether a SL lexical item is found
in one form or another in monolingual TL dictionaries. I have established the type of narrative
that each specific realia occurs in — dialog, monolog, 3rd person narrative, hybrid. All these
data can be analyzed statistically and provide more information about the reasons for translators’
choices.
288
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297
Index
аканье 79, 205 американка 189–190 аршин 65, 217, 219 арык 127, 142–142, 149 атаман 135, 254 аул 149, 223, 225–226 балаган (балаганный) 182–183 балалаечник 117, 184 баланда 63 битюг 143 блатной 229 блины, блинчики 110, 152–153, 192 большевик 67–68, 108 борщ 68, 107 бояре 245–246 булава 175–176 бурки 156 бушлат 157–158 валенки 102, 124, 126, 156–158 ванька 171–172 ВДНХ 234 великая княгиня 251–252 великая княжна 251–252 величание 193 Вербное воскресенье 197 верста 26, 95, 130–131, 215–216, 220–221 вершок 133, 218–219 вечерняя смена 239–240 витязь 130, 183 военный коммунизм 116–117, 229–230 гимназистка 243–244 гимназическая фуражка 154–155 гимназия 242–243 гоф-фурьер 250 гофмейстрина 250 гражданин 252–253 гранёный стакан 168–169 гривенник 128–129 грош 208–210 губерния 223–225 дача, дачный 111, 165–166, 45–49 дачник, дачница 165–167 девичья 165 девятое (мая) 120–121, 190 девятый класс 240 Дед Мороз 131, 185
декабрист 117 Добрармия 257–258 домовой 185–186 донцы 255 древляне 200 дублёнка 155 дядя 253–254 ёлка 126, 191 ефрейтор 257 жиды 202–204 жжёнка 134–135 завхоз 178 ЗАГС 235–236 замполит 123, 257 заслуженный артист 252 зипун 124 иеромонах 195–196 изба 164 интеллигент 247–248 интеллигенция 247 истопник 177–178 казак 254–255 калаш 176–177 камер-казак 255 камер-лакей 250 камер-паж 250 камер-фурьер 250 камер-юнкер 81, 250, 251, 255 камзол 126, 158, 160 камлание 196–197 “канарейка” 128 караимы 201 кафтан 127, 158 квас 108–109 кирзовые сапоги 161–162 китель 161 клобук 131–132 кокошник 32, 112–113, 156 коллективизация 55, 230 колхоз 236–237 колхозница 180 коммуналка 163 копейка 133, 207–209, 212 корнет 255–256 коробейник 178–179 косоворотка 122, 154, 159–160 КПСС 57 красная комната 123 красный уголок 123, 257 крымские татары 201 Крымское правительство 238
кулебяка 113, 146, 167 кума 196 кунган 169 кутья 78–79, 115 курс истории КПСС 57 лаваш 146, 150–151 лепёшка 151–152 лубок (лубочный) 183 майские праздники 190 Масленица 192 милиционер 179–180 милиция 180 мужик 154–155, 179, 248–249 “муха” 176 мыза 164 народный артист 252 новогодняя ёлка 117, 191–192 Новый год 191 ноябрьские праздники 121, 190 нэп 228 обер-камергер 250–251 область (областной) 224–225 окрошка 52, 125, 149 оладушек 27–28 опричники 80 орден кромешников 232–233 орочи 199 парсуна 181 пасочница 148, 168 пастила 147 пасха 148–149 передовик 179 петровские немцы 200–201 петрушка (петрушечий) 182–183 пионерский галстук 57, 162 пирожки 95, 131, 145–146 плацкарт 173 подстаканник 168 полати 169 полиция 180 полтинник 210 полушубок 116 преферанс 189 пролётка 171–172 процентная норма 240–241 пряник 98–99, 124, 133, 149 пуд (пудовый) 55, 111, 132, 216–217 пятёрка 241–242 райсовет 237–238
298
раскольники 194, 246 реалист 243 реальное училище 243–244 рубль 108, 207, 210, 212–213 сажень (саженный) 55–56, 65, 80–81, 109, 130, 215 сайка 92 сакля 122, 164–165 самиздат (самиздатский) 55, 228–229 самовар 62, 129, 170 сбитень 122– 124 Святки 197 скатерть-самобранка 123, 184–185 совхоз (совхозный) 236–237 Сороки 188, 197–198 спецназ 258 станица 225–226 старец 195–196 староверы 119–120, 194 столбовая дорога 172–173 столыпин173 студень 79 сударь 252–253 сушки 131, 148–149 тайга 142 текинец 113, 143–144 теплушка 174 терем 122, 127, 165 толстовец 117–118, 195 торгсин 235 травка-муравка 186–188 тройка (транспорт) 172–173 тройка (оценка) 241 тужурка 127,158–159 тунгусы 199 тундра 142 ударник производства 179 улус 226–227 управа 237–238 училище 242–244 физики и лирики 231–232 халва 109 ходя 202 хохол 129, 202 хотон 226 христосоваться 56 царевна 252 царевна-лягушка 120 царица 69, 252 Цекубу 234–235 целковый 129, 139, 212 ЦСКА 236 чахохбили 146, 150–151
чача 149–150 чебуреки 146–147, 149 червячок 210–211 черносотенец 118, 230–231 четвертная 211 Четвёртое управление 90–91 чуйка 126, 159 чум 50, 51 шапка-ушанка 155 шашлыки 60, 108, 149 шестой класс 249–250 щи 114–115 юнкер 256 ямщик 172, 173